The story so far: Thousands of Peruvians on Thursday, January 12, marched in the capital Lima demanding that the country’s new President Dina Boluarte step down. This came after 17 protesters died on January 9, as they clashed with security forces while attempting to storm an airport in the southern city of Juliaca, near the border with Bolivia. It was the worst escalation of violence since the December 7 ouster of former President Pedro Castillo and was the highest death toll in a day of violence. Protesters, mainly in Peru’s South, have taken to the streets to demand early elections, the resignation of new President Dina Boluarte, changes to the Constitution, and the release of the imprisoned Mr. Castillo.
Besides, the office of Peru’s prosecutor on Tuesday launched an inquiry into President Boluarte and members of her cabinet on charges of “genocide, qualified homicide, and serious injuries” in the violent clashes that have seen at least 40 killed and hundreds injured since early December.
Why are Peruvians protesting?
Pedro Castillo, Peru’s now ousted former President, had on December 7, 2022, called for the immediate shutdown of the country’s Congress, seeking the installment of a “government of exception” to rule by decree till fresh legislative elections could be held. He had also called for reorganising the South American nation’s judiciary while facing multiple corruption probes by the prosecutor’s office. On this day, the leftist political neophyte and former schoolteacher was due to face his third Impeachment vote by the Opposition-led Congress.
Soon after Mr. Castillo’s announcement, however, multiple ministers in his cabinet resigned, while both his allies and opponents accused him of attempting a coup. Lawmakers in the legislature went ahead with the impeachment vote citing his “moral incapacity” to be the leader, with a majority of 101 members voting to oust him.
The Congress called on Dina Boluarte, Mr. Castillo’s Vice President, to replace him and she was sworn in the very next day, becomingPeru’s first female President.
On the day of his ouster, Mr. Castillo also attempted to approach the Mexican embassy in the Peruvian capital Lima to seek asylum, but his own security detail drove him to prison. The Public Ministry announced Mr. Castillo’s detention that evening, accusing him of “rebellion” and “conspiracy” to break constitutional order.
His arrest and removal from power sparked large-scale protests in Lima and southern regions of Peru. In the streets of the capital, officers doused protesters with tear gas and beat them. In December, Castillo supporters camped out in front of the police facility in Lima where he was detained, demanding his release. Outside the capital, demonstrators burned police stations, blocked roads, took over an airstrip used by the armed forces and invaded the runway of the international airport of Arequipa, favoured by tourists.
Who is Pedro Castillo?
The son of a peasant family, José Pedro Castillo Terrones is a former schoolteacher and trade unionist. In 2021, Mr. Castillo, who hails from hilly Cajamarca, rose to power supported by communities in the country’s southern countryside regions, including Puno, Ayacucho, and Arequipa, and alsothe rural communities on the outskirts of Lima.
His campaign promised to redistribute Peru’s mineral wealth, nationalise the mining and gas sectors to benefit local populations, and change the constitution, which was market-friendly during the almost decade-long rule by decree of conservative leader Alberto Fujimori. “No more poor people in a rich country,” became his campaign refrain, and it resonated with Andean mountain communities and indigenous people who blamed Peru’s long line of political elites for the inequality between the wealthy coastal capital and inland provinces.
Mr. Castillo was not being able to deliver on any of these promises during his tumultuous term of less than two years when he cycled through 80 different ministers to keep his cabinet going. But those protesting in his stronghold felt represented by him.
What is the history of ethnic and regional inequality in Peru?
There is discontent in Peru’s rural and southern regions due to regional and ethnic socioeconomic gaps prevailing since Peru’s 500-year-old European colonisation, according to a 2022 International Monetary Fund (IMF) paper. Discontented Peruvians argue that “colonizers, instead of engaging in peaceful welfare-enhancing trade with the established Native American population, violently settled in the Andes, largely tore down its civilization, and seized its most important production factors, leaving behind substantial economic gaps between Peruvians of European and Native American origins,” the paper states.
Seeking opportunities, native communities migrated from rural areas to the capital region in the 20th century, but had to settle for work in the informal sector. In the 21st century, the postcolonial legacy of income inequality remained despite Peru’s economic boom from the early 2000s to the mid-2010s. The global commodity prices cycle in the period benefitted the Latin American region and Peru emerged as a “growth miracle”, registering an annual average growth rate above 6.5% between 2005 and 2012, and maintaining annual growth at 4.3% till 2019. Monetary poverty also decreased from more than 50% in 2004 to less than 23% in 2014.
Despite this, however, ethnic and regional inequality did not taper at the same pace. Oxfam’s 2015 working paper on Peru noted that if in 2004, a rural resident was twice as likely to be poor compared to an urban resident, by 2015, that probability had tripled. In the past decade, Peruvians in the mountainous Andean region and the jungle were twice as likely to be poor than those living on the coast. Moreover, those living in Mr. Castillo’s strongholds—Ayacucho, Huancavelica, and Cajamarca—were between four and five times more likely to be poor than inhabitants of Lima. Gaps in education, access to safe drinking water, and employment also prevailed. The IMF paper highlights that while these gaps have been closing gradually, if the pace of narrowing of the gaps between 2004 and 2014 is extrapolated, Native Americans will only reach the average income of Peruvian white communities by the mid-2040s.
Since when has political instability prevailed?
Peru has had six different Presidents in the last seven years, with almost all of them facing corruption allegations or probes, or even ouster, like Mr. Castillo. Mr. Castillo, too got embroiled in corruption scandals, including allegations of ties with a “criminal organisation” allegedly benefiting from state contracts, and obstruction ofinvestigations.
Peru’s protestors are demanding a complete clear-out of the Congress, widely seen as a self-serving institution used by lawmakers to enrich themselves—whether by pushing for budgets covering projects in their strongholds to receive kickbacks or proposing laws favouring companies connected to them. Notably, more than half of the lawmakers in the 130-member Congress have been probed for money laundering and bribery.
Another factor in Peru’s political instability is the fragmented composition of the Congress, Opposition-led and made up of 17 parties. The institution has time and again used its powers of impeachment against Presidents without majority party support, who struggle to run administrations and complete their terms. Mr. Castillo, too, struggled to get a grip on governance, a hostile Congress and the wealthy classes which opposed him. Congress voted to impeach him twice, but failed to garner enough support until the December 7 vote.
What next?
Ms. Boluarte has made concessions to pacify protesters, assuring them that security forces would be investigated for their actions towards demonstrators, and moving up Presidential and legislative elections by two years to early 2024.
Public anger has, however, not cooled down. While there was seemingly a lull during the holidays, protests have intensified since the start of this year due to deaths of protestors in clashes with the forces.
Ms. Boluarte’s popularity rating has now slid to 21% - similar to that of Mr. Castillo before his ouster. The favourability rating of the Congress, though, is even lower, at just 13%, per a recent Ipsos Peru poll. The recently announced probe by the prosecutor into the President and her administration will likely only do more to lower public support.
