Peru Votes to Impeach Its Fifth President in 6 Years

Peru’s opposition-led Congress voted 76-41 on Monday to begin an impeachment trial against communist President Pedro Castillo over corruption charges.

A previous impeachment attempt in December came up short of the votes needed to begin the trial.

Castillo won a narrow victory in July 2021 as an outsider anti-establishment candidate from humble origins, running under the banner of the Marxist-Leninist Free Peru party. As in many other elections since the Chinese coronavirus outbreak, dissatisfaction with the incumbent government’s handling of the pandemic played a role in his victory, adding to years of public anger with widespread corruption and resentment among the poor over massive income disparities in the generally successful Peruvian economy.

The Peruvian Right disputed Castillo’s election from the beginning, with opponent and veteran presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori unsuccessfully challenging the legitimacy of ballots collected from rural areas. Fujimori warned Peruvians to “defend the constitution and not let communism destroy it to take power definitively” under Castillo’s administration.

Castillo’s low popularity, barely sufficient to eke out a win against Fujimori under just about the best imaginable political conditions for a Marxist populist, evaporated swiftly after his election. The Financial Times succinctly summarized the first nine months of the Castillo presidency on Tuesday:

When the rural primary school teacher narrowly won election last year, optimists hoped he might construct a coalition extending well beyond his Marxist-Leninist party Peru Libre and govern pragmatically. Pessimists pointed to his complete lack of experience and to the influence of Vladimir Cerrón, the shadowy Cuban-trained party boss, and predicted disaster.

Seven months after Castillo took office, the pessimists have prevailed. The president is on his fourth prime minister, his third foreign minister and his second finance minister. His government is lurching from crisis to crisis. The third premier was appointed at the start of this month but lasted just four days after allegations surfaced that he had assaulted his wife and daughter. His replacement is a confrontational figure unlikely to survive long.

Fresh scandals break almost daily, mostly allegations of incompetence or petty corruption. The government is paralyzed – ironically a development which has calmed investors who feared radical measures.

Fitch Ratings on Tuesday warned the Castillo impeachment vote was a sign of “weakening governance” that could jeopardize the Peruvian economy and its credit ratings.

Castillo himself is Peru’s fifth president in six years, with one predecessor impeached and another driven from office by an impeachment threat, so perhaps the instability of his administration should come as no surprise. Peru’s current political system is distinguished by shifting alliances of small political parties that tend to be more volatile than the pre-millennium coalitions of large, stable parties. Castillo has demonstrated very little skill at sailing through these turbulent political waters.

The first effort to impeach and remove Castillo in December failed with only 46 votes, in part because his critics could not produce rumored smoking-gun recordings that implicated the president in serious corruption. The Financial Times also suggested some “self-interest” among Peruvian legislators was at work since removing Castillo from office would trigger a general election that might wipe out much of Congress as well.

In January, the Peruvian attorney general opened an investigation of Castillo for influence peddling and collusion with private interests. The charges said Castillo “improperly intervened” in bidding that involved state enterprises and assets, including the state-owned oil company, Petroperu.

The impeachment trial voted by the Peruvian Congress on Monday is scheduled to begin on March 28. 87 out of 130 congressional votes will be needed to remove the president from office.

Castillo and his defenders claim the charges are right-wing political fabrications, noting that the largest party pushing for impeachment is Keiko Fujimori’s Popular Force, who has been accused of corruption herself. Only Free Peru currently has more members in Congress.

Castillo indicated a desire to take his case to the people over the coming two weeks, but his 26 percent approval rating could make that populist strategy difficult to execute.