Peru seeks a way out of the institutional crisis

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The idea of a new Constitution, or deep reforms to the current one, began to emerge in Peru as a possible answer to the serious crisis of representation, reflected according to polls that show a negative opinion of 76% for the government and 82% for the Congress.

The possibility of constitutional change, opposed by the right-wing, the economic elites, and the media power, was in the collateral discourse in last week’s popular mobilizations, which were the most challenging moment in nine months of leftist President Pedro Castillo’s administration.

“How strange that only in Lima do they ask for the vacancy (presidential dismissal). Here the majority is not in favor of vacancy. We want the 1993 Constitution to be changed because it has allowed the big monopolies to make and break prices,” said a resident of the city of Ica, quoted by the Lima daily La República, in the middle of the march.

The issue was raised by the governor of the department of Puno, Germán Alejo, who, in a public meeting of the Council of Ministers, in the presence of Castillo, demanded that the issue be taken up again because, he argued, the difficulty of the moment requires great solutions.

In this context, political scientist Roger Santa Cruz considered, in a dialogue with Télam, that the possibility of changing the Constitution is latent and “waiting to find its political channel” because what is at stake is not only the figure of Pedro Castillo but the political structure in general.

The change of the Peruvian Constitution drafted “in the image and likeness” of then-President Alberto Fujimori has always been on the agenda of the left and center-left. The current government took up the banner but abandoned it amid the crisis accompanying it from the beginning.

Peru mobilized last week to protest against the rising cost of living, which the official discourse attributes exclusively to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, but which, according to the opposition, worsened due to the lack of governmental reaction.

Six people died in three departments -two of them directly in clashes with the police- while Lima was paralyzed on Tuesday for several hours due to a surprise daytime curfew which increased the president’s criticism, very much resisted in the city since the beginning.

What is striking about the days is that they were not limited to Lima but extended throughout the Andes, which last year gave massive support to Pedro Castillo. The most serious disturbances occurred in the department of Junin, the cradle and stronghold of the ruling Peru Libre party and the only one in which this Marxist-Leninist collective is the regional government.

For Santa Cruz, as for many other analysts, the fact that Castillo came out comparatively well is because the Congress, which appears as the institutional face of the opposition, is even more resisted by the public opinion, which explains why the social movements do not want to be seen as the caboose of the radical right.

The “hard-line” parties Fuerza Popular (FP), Renovación Popular (RP), and Avanza País initiated from the very beginning actions to oust Pedro Castillo and have already failed twice in formal attempts. It seems to have become oxygen for the government, despite its constant “unforced errors”.

If Castillo were to leave power via dismissal, he would have to be replaced by Vice President Dina Boluarte, but spokespersons of FP, RP, and Avanza País have already made it clear that they would not accept it, so the head of state would pass to the president of Congress, Maricarmen Alva, whose rejection figures are similar to those of the president.

The clamor “that they all leave”, which without visible faces demands early elections so that the Executive and the Legislative leave soon and not in 2026, is also hindered because it would require the commitment of the two powers.

Santa Cruz, from the Pedro Ruiz Gallo and Antonio Ruiz de Montoya universities, therefore insists that the crisis is institutional and the solutions would have to go through a process that includes constitutional reforms. However, it is not clear how this could materialize at the moment.

The confusion was summed up by the head of the Observatory of Public Policies of the Universidad del Pacífico, Alexandra Ames: “In Peru, anything can happen”. But “my prognosis is not good, the president is in intensive care, and the discontent of the population will increase”, she added in the weekly Hildebrandt en sus Trece.

After last week’s events, Pedro Castillo declared himself optimistic: “I believe and have faith that the political moment in which we have been involved has come to an end, and we have to show that we can work with transparency,” he said at the beginning of a public meeting of the Council of Ministers in Huancayo, the capital of Junin.

That meeting and a similar one held later in Puno would indicate that the president is seeking reconciliation with the Andes, where support for his administration is deteriorating despite the distances of those sectors from Lima and the classic right-wing.

In fact, according to residents of Junin, one of the facts that most outraged them was that Castillo said that the protests in that region were because their leaders – mainly carriers and farmers – were paid by their enemies.

In Santa Cruz’s opinion, Pedro Castillo should take up again the banners of social change that -besides the discredit of his rival, Keiko Fujimori- explain his electoral triumph. The problem, he warns, is that the president “does not allow himself to be helped”.

Castillo began to confront the high cost with measures such as the temporary elimination of the Selective Consumption Tax for fuels and the General Sales Tax for basic necessities. However, there was controversy in the latter because Congress wanted to include the exclusive lomo fino, pheasant, goose, or guinea fowl.

For analysts, the president will also have to analyze the continuity of his ministerial chief of staff, Aníbal Torres, generator of several controversies, the most recent when he praised Hitler and Mussolini in public. The problem is that he has already had four ministerial teams, something unusual for such a short time.

Peruvians, annoyed with their government and their Congress, will thus face the Passion Week with the increasingly weakened hope that formulas will emerge from the political class that will allow them to overcome the tables and face the real problems.