Perú has experienced two significant political surprises in recent years, both of which are symptomatic of deeper issues rather than the root cause of the ongoing political crisis. The first surprise was the election of Pedro Castillo, a rural teacher and left-wing union leader, who won the presidency in 2021 despite being closely surrounded by political opponents and eventually fell from power after only a year and a half due to his own errors and accusations. The second event was the mass protests that erupted following Castillo's downfall, mainly in the southern Andean regions, expressing a sense of power usurpation by the right, which had lost the last elections approximately two years prior.
These events have been characterized by rampant corruption and attempts to evade legal processes, culminating in the attempted coup on December 7, 2022, which ultimately failed. This led to a counter-coup by the right-wing-controlled Congress, which removed President Castillo and placed Vice President Dina Boluarte in power, despite the lack of due process. The right-wing's success in gaining political space has been attributed to this incident.
The underlying roots of these events lie in the historical development of Peru over the past three decades under neoliberalism. The country has seen a series of presidents, congresses, and ministers amidst various government crises within five years. The inability to solve political crises through changes in personnel has led to a severe deterioration of institutional legitimacy among the population. Citizens now doubt the validity of institutions for political ordering and governments' ability to persuade and maintain hegemony in their projects, particularly the neoliberal one.
A significant catalyst for the loss of institutional legitimacy and hegemony was the revelation of massive corruption starting in 2016, particularly in the case of Lava Jato, which implicated politicians across the political spectrum. This corruption has undermined the perception of impunity among politicians, with no firm sentences resulting from the investigations after seven years. The crises of government, regime, and state have further questioned the power of those who hold state power, leading to a challenge of the "recaptured state" established in the 1992 military coup, which restored the original exclusionary characteristics of the Peruvian state.
The convergence of these crises has led to what Antonio Gramsci refers to as an "organic crisis," revealing the relationship between immediate problems and historical issues. This has resulted in a strong rejection of promises of new social policies and a call for a new constitution.
Economically, the development model based on exporting primary commodities has been structurally linked to these events. The majority of the movement occurred in the southern Andean region, home to the country's main mining and gas projects, as well as the ancestral territories of the Quechua and Aymara peoples. This highlights the structural issues associated with the export-oriented economy, particularly in relation to indigenous communities and resource exploitation.
