Peruvian Standoff
Yael Sternberg
March 19, 2025

On March 6, Peruvian lawmakers voted to reinstate former President Alberto Fujimori's signature on the country's constitution—reversing a 23-year-old law that had erased it in an effort to distance the country from his dictatorial legacy. While purely symbolic, the move is reflective of one of the key drivers of the country's ongoing constitutional crisis, which has led each of the country's last ten presidents to end up in prison, under investigation, disgraced, or dead.

Many analyses of the crisis tend to blame bad actors in office or the country's modern political context marred by corruption, social unrest, and fractured political parties. However, the root of this ongoing crisis lies deep in a flawed constitutional framework—shaped amidst the chaos of social change—and the country's unresolved relationship with the legacy of Alberto Fujimori's dictatorship. This inability to reconcile with the past undermines any ideological or productive functioning of elected officials, as excessive checks and balances chronically pit branches of government against one another. The result is a system that creates space for self-serving actors to thrive, fosters obstructionism, and makes corruption one of the few viable means of achieving political goals.

Today's crisis is the direct result of nearly a decade of parliamentary roulette

Peru has been experiencing a political crisis since 2016 involving a series of presidential impeachment attempts and resignations, deadly protests, and corruption scandals. The country is now on its seventh president since 2016: Dina Boluarte, a former low-level functionary with a 4% approval rating, who replaced leftist underdog and former elementary school teacher Pedro Castillo. In a bewildering series of events, Castillo was impeached on December 7, 2022, and arrested after attempting to illegally dissolve congress, call for a constitutional rewrite, and flee via the Mexican embassy. His rationale for the alleged self-coup was that congress had denied his government two votes of confidence and had engaged in obstructionist moves throughout his presidency. One of Castillo's former ministers later claimed the president had been drugged through the whole ordeal. Castillo's downfall was reminiscent of the 2020 impeachment of Martin Vizcarra, whose presidency ended after ongoing battles with a hostile congress and bringing governance to a standstill.

Two constitutional mechanisms are key to understanding this turmoil. The first is that presidents can be impeached for "moral incapacity," a vague and undefined term often used arbitrarily. If the president is impeached, the vice president assumes office; if the vice president steps down—potentially out of loyalty to the president—they trigger immediate general elections, essentially taking congress down with them. The second mechanism legally permits the president to dissolve congress if two prime ministers are denied a vote of confidence—a process further complicated by the controversial idea of "implicit denial," where the president interprets congressional inaction on a confidence vote as a de facto rejection, as seen in the 2019 dissolution by Vizcarra and 2022 by Castillo.

In either case, the threat of early elections means both the president and legislators could be out of a job, thanks to a 2018 ban on consecutive re-election originally introduced as an anti-corruption measure that has instead led to a loss of institutional knowledge and worsened political fragmentation. These mechanisms, designed as democratic checks and balances, now hand a loaded pistol to both congress and the presidency, locking them in a Mexican (or rather, Peruvian) standoff where either side can trigger mutual destruction.

Chronic political gridlock means Peruvians almost never get what they voted for

Castillo was elected in 2021 amid a brief leftist-dominated wave ushered in through pandemic and inequality-driven social discontent, but was quick to disappoint his rural and leftist constituents after failing to implement meaningful policies such as agrarian reforms, mining industry nationalizations, and union protections. For her part, Boluarte has mostly abandoned her leftist objectives and now faces congressional scrutiny for countless alleged offenses, including failure to disclose undergoing surgeries while in office, the disappearance and investigation of her brother for alleged corruption, her possession of luxury watches and jewelry, and the deaths of 69 civilians during protests following her inauguration. Regardless of specific misgivings, congress has indiscriminately targeted presidents since 2016, as most have ruled with weak congressional support. Castillo's fall and Boluarte's likewise disappointing presidency showed Peruvians that even by electing a "change" candidate, there is little a president can do in the face of obstructionism.

The good, the bad, and the ugly: democracy, dictatorship, obstructionism

Historical context reveals that Peru's constitutional challenges today stem from a long history of political upheaval and societal change. Since gaining independence in 1821, the country has revised or rewritten its constitution several times. This reflects a broader trend across Latin America, where constitutions of newly independent states shaped governance and whose amendments often mark significant political and societal transformations. Peru's 1933 constitution remained in effect until a military coup in 1968, after which the 1979 charter restored democracy following a decade of military rule. The current constitution, enacted in 1993, emerged not in a turn towards democracy but rather from a political crisis that teared Peru away from it, thus lending little closure to the period's trauma.

The 1993 Constitution was drafted under President Alberto Fujimori's so-called autogolpe or "self-coup." On April 5, 1992, he announced the temporary dissolution of congress and reorganization of the judiciary on national television, ordering the military to shut down congress with tanks and deploying tear gas to disperse senators who attempted to convene. Fujimori also declared that Peru would no longer fall under the jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, a signal of deliberate impunity and foreshadowing human rights violations for the decade to come. Following Fujimori's resignation in 2000, amendments were introduced to curb his hyperpresidentialist constitutional provisions, including the establishment of term limits, the restoration of a bicameral legislature, and the strengthening of judicial independence. As the past decade of crisis has shown, not only have some of these reforms backfired, but they have also done little to help the country cohesively reconcile with Fujimori's legacy.

While many in Peru continue to recognize Fujimori's government as a repressive dictatorship, others remain members of a loyal Fujimori base. Led by his daughter Keiko's Fuerza Popular Party, this faction continues to engage in revisionist efforts to reshape Fujimori's reputation (and has frequently been a driving force behind congressional obstructionism). In fact, the bill to reinstate Fujimori's signature to the 1993 magna carta is a Fuerza Popular initiative, though it received support beyond the party from lawmakers who credit Fujimori for Peru's economic stability and successful fight against the guerilla group Sendero Luminoso. A similar move was made in 2019, when the Ministry of Culture, under pressure from a citizen backed by the same party, removed references to Fujimori's infamous faxed resignation from the Lugar de la Memoria (LUM) museum in Lima. This decision, despite overwhelming evidence confirming the faxed resignation, was widely criticized as an attempt to rewrite history and sanitize Fujimori's stained memory.

The duel lacks a credible arbitrator

Though nominally neutral, decisions of the country's ad-hoc Constitutional Court throughout the crisis have tended to reflect strategic thinking as well as alignment with political realities, often favoring the incumbent administration or avoiding direct confrontations with those in power that could destabilize its institutional standing. For instance, the court ruled in favor of the legality of Vizcarra's largely popular dissolution of Congress, while more recently adopting an oppositional stance against institutionally weak leftist figures, as seen in its opinions on Pedro Castillo's dissolution attempts. In Fujimori's era, the court upheld several policies that entrenched his regime, such as stabilization acts that disproportionately benefited private monopolies; the court also ordered Fujimori's early release from prison in 2023, nine months before his death in September 2024.

Justices of the tribunal, established under the 1993 constitution, are selected by congress through a process frequently criticized for political influence. Bribery scandals have further eroded its credibility, as high-profile cases have implicated several members of the judiciary in corruption, including allegations that decisions were influenced by backroom deals. Such controversies feed into public perceptions that the court's role as a check on government power is compromised, contributing to the broader crisis of institutional dysfunction.

The guns remain drawn for now

The ongoing crisis is not simply the product of bad actors or a flawed constitutional framework; it is the result of a deeper failure to reconcile with the authoritarian legacy of the Fujimori regime and the inequalities that divide Peruvian society. Constitutional reforms post-Fujimori, designed to prevent hyperpresidentialism, have instead ushered inexperienced individuals into power and enabled permanent deadlock between the presidency and congress. Meanwhile, the lack of a cohesive effort to address the country's traumatic past—something neighboring Chile has tried through constitutional reform and Argentina through landmark trials of the juntas—leaves Peru unable to move forward with unity.

At the margins of the crisis is a profound cleavage between Peru's urban elites and rural, indigenous, and agrarian communities who remain marginalized by language barriers, systemic neglect, and economic exploitation. For these communities, Castillo's presidency, despite its dysfunction, symbolized a rare opportunity for representation, with his removal leaving many feeling abandoned once again. These people, many of whom have lost their lives in protests over the years, highlight the pressing need to make institutional reforms that also address their systemic exclusion from governance.

In the immediate future, Congress is unlikely to impeach President Boluarte despite the controversies plaguing her as lawmakers seek to avoid triggering early elections that would cut their terms short. This calculus may shift after the 2026 general elections are formally announced this April, as removing the president at that point would no longer move up the vote. Looking ahead, the fractured political landscape offers little hope for transformative leadership, as the same familiar names dominate the field, and no candidate or party appears capable of addressing the country's deep-seated frustrations or uniting its diverse constituencies.

Without meaningful institutional reform, such as the anti-corruption measures championed by Martín Vizcarra and supported by international organizations, Peru risks perpetuating its cycle of instability. Only by addressing its structural flaws, reconciling with its past, and ensuring representation for its most marginalized citizens can the country hope to break free from the grip of its political standoff and chart a path toward a more equitable and functional democracy.