Above photo: Banner from December 23, 2022 in Lima, Peru reads “No more deaths, Dina resign, the people demand it!”. Zoe Alexandra.
Amid Mass Protests.
Activists in Peru warn that the Congress is just as responsible for the crisis facing the country marked by an increase in crime, precarity, and corruption.
In the early hours of Friday, October 10, Peru’s Congress overwhelmingly voted to remove President Dina Boluarte from office on the grounds of “permanent moral incapacity”. The emergency session was called to debate her impeachment amid the most recent wave of mass anti-government protests that have been escalating since September.
A shooting at a cumbia concert of one of Peru’s most popular groups, Agua Marina, on Wednesday sparked renewed anger and protests at the government’s inability to address systemic crime.
ABC News reports that 6,041 people have been killed this year alone, a significant increase from the last several years. Extortion, in particular, has spiked massively, with complaints totaling “15,989 between January and July, a 28% increase from the same period in 2024.”
Civilians and small businesses have been increasingly targeted by criminal groups, even for relatively small amounts of money. Transport workers have been a regular part of mobilizations in the Andean country in recent years because of the insecurity they face from extortionists while driving their routes.
Boluarte’s nearly three-year tenure has been marked by the surge in crime, corruption, scandals, and mass protests that plagued her from beginning to end. Protests were heavily repressed under Boluarte, leading to the deaths of dozens of Peruvians.
Possibly one of the most unpopular leaders in history, recent polls registered a 96% disapproval rating of Boluarte. Even more unpopular than the president, however, is the Congress that removed her from office.
“The Congress of the Republic, in this context, has been forced to remove Dina Boluarte from office due to the people’s discontent,” Peruvian sociologist Lucia Alvites tells Peoples Dispatch. She adds that the upcoming elections in April are a major factor in this outcome also.
“Congress now wants to distance itself from Dina Boluarte in order to contest the country’s elections,” Alvites says.
The Congress has been Boluarte’s “main ally, the main accomplice in human rights violations, has also legislated in favor of organized crime” amid surging violence and extortion in the country. Alvites suggests that the people will never accept someone so “complicit in the dictatorship” as Congress leader Jose Jeri, who was sworn in as interim president on Friday. A Congress leader is no different to the people because “the delegitimization of both Boluarte and the Congress” has been deeply consolidated by the discontent that has dragged on for years.
“They’re the same crap. Let’s mobilize for the country.”
The Rise Of Peru’s Coup President
Boluarte, 63, assumed office after leftist President Pedro Castillo was removed from office in a coup d’état in December 2022, only a year and a half after winning a historic electoral victory. A rural schoolteacher, Castillo won the presidency on a campaign promising deep social reforms and a new constitution. However, he was never able to bring his program to fruition.
From the moment he assumed office, members of Peru’s elite and right-wing opposition parties began a series of unrelenting hostilities aimed at stopping Castillo’s reforms and removing him completely. Groups of former military personnel, allied with leading far-right politicians, began to openly call for the violent overthrow of Castillo. The right-wing in Congress attempted to impeach Castillo twice during his first year in office.
The political crisis escalated and finally broke in December 2022. When a congressional session planned to debate and vote on his dismissal, Castillo made a move to protect himself from the vote of the far-right body. He quickly announced the dissolution of Congress and the start of an “exceptional emergency government”. After his announcement, however, most of his cabinet resigned, paving the way for right-wing sectors to accuse him of trying to seize power illegally. His vice president at the time, Dina Boluarte, was sworn in as president while Castillo was arrested and charged with allegedly “breaching constitutional order”. The United States immediately and publicly rejected Castillo’s move and supported Boluarte’s appointment, pledging continued economic and military cooperation with Peru under her government.
