Peru’s Democratic Dysfunction
Facts
- On Sunday, Peruvian authorities imprisoned former Pres. Alejandro Toledo hours after he landed in the capital Lima. He was in the custody of Interpol officers following extradition from the US.
- The 77-year-old, who was president between 2001 and 2006, has been ordered to serve a pre-trial detention of 18 months inside a police base on the outskirts of Lima, where former presidents Alberto Fujimori and Pedro Castillo are also being held.
- Toledo is accused of taking around $35M in bribes from Brazilian construction firm Odebrecht in exchange for awarding a lucrative contract to build a highway linking Peru and Brazil during his term.
- Toledo left Peru in 2016, returning to his alma mater, Stanford University, as a visiting scholar to study education in Latin America. Since 2019, when he was arrested in Menlo Park, Calif., he had been engaged in a legal battle against his extradition, which came to an end on Friday as he turned himself in to US federal agents.
- Though the former Peruvian president denies the allegations of money laundering and corruption, Odebrecht has admitted to paying $800M in bribes to officials throughout Latin America in exchange for public works contracts.
- Every elected Peruvian president since 1985 is either in jail, has been in jail, or faced arrest.
Spin
Narrative A
Peru has been trying to rebuild its democracy over the last two decades but still struggles to elect a government that can operate without corruption. The struggle against political corruption requires a strong judiciary, stable party structures, strict enforcement of anti-corruption strategies, and control over illegal and foreign financing of presidential elections — all currently lacking in Peru.
Narrative B
The fact that Peru has already had seven presidents since 2016 speaks volumes about the country's political situation. However, there's a reason for optimism for Peruvian democracy if structural reforms are implemented to put the country on a sound institutional footing. Peru holds its leaders accountable for crimes committed against its democratic institutions.
Nerd narrative
There is a 50% chance that Peru's GDP per capita (PPP) will be at least 20.2K in 2030, according to the Metaculus prediction community.
