Peruvian Roulette: Peruvians Take To The Streets Against Another New Government That Feels all Too Familiar

Peruvian Roulette: Peruvians Take to the Streets Against Another New Government that Feels All Too Familiar Peru Ernesto, 43, used to love being a bus driver in the Peruvian capital of Lima. Now, he is scared of dying on the job for refusing to pay gangs. “Before, they’d rob you, take your cell phone, or your day’s earnings,” Ernesto told El País. “Now it’s like Russian roulette: Imagine I go out right now and it’s my turn, they shoot me and it’s all over.” “People are terrified,” he added. Driving a bus has become one of Peru’s most dangerous jobs, with drivers often murdered for refusing to pay protection money to gangs such as Peru’s Los Pulpos and Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua. But most people being extorted have very little extra to give. “We’re being murdered for 5 soles ($1.50),” Julio Campos, a 57-year-old bus driver, told Le Monde. “Extortion has become institutionalized.” From January to September this year, the country had 20,705 complaints for extortion, though analysts believe the actual number of such crimes is far higher. Meanwhile, murders in Peru have surged: There were 2,082 homicides last year – half of them contract killings – up from a previous high of 676 total homicides in 2017. Fed up with crime, political chaos and the rising cost of living, Gen Z-led protests broke out in September, often turning violent. A month later, President Dina Boluarte, 63, already under investigation for corruption and facing single-digit approval ratings, was impeached for “permanent moral incapacity,” but mainly for failing to make a dent in the growing criminality taking over the country. The move came just hours after a shooting at a concert in Lima outraged the public. Boluarte was replaced by interim President José Jerí, a conservative politician best known for being elected as the Speaker of Congress despite being accused of sexually assaulting a woman at a Christmas party last year. He has become Peru’s eighth president in less than a decade. According to the Economist, one of Jerí’s first moves as interim president was to “unfollow adult content accounts on social media and delete his lecherous past posts,” with critics calling him “el presidente Pajero,” or “the wanker president.” Fresh protests broke out with Peruvians calling for Jerí to resign, but they were met by a harsh government crackdown in which one protester died and hundreds more were injured. In response to the unrest, Jerí declared a one-month state of emergency in Lima and the neighboring port of Callao. He’s also made a show of visiting prisons to promote a tough-on-crime image, wrote CNN’s Spanish edition. Still, youth groups have pledged to defy the state of emergency – which has sent soldiers onto the streets and restricted the freedoms of assembly and movement – and continue protesting. “We have the constitutional right to protest,” said Jorge Calmet, one of the Gen Z protest leaders. “That right cannot be taken away from us by a police commander, a congressman – and certainly not by someone who pretends to be president. We will march as many times as necessary.” Despite violent nationwide protests and a failed attempt by leftist lawmakers to impeach him, Jeri has refused to resign, the Financial Times noted. With approval ratings below 5 percent, the unpopular leader is seen as more of the same, analysts say. Still, “Even by the recent dismal standards of Peruvian politics, the ascension of Jose Jeri to be interim president marks a new low” for the country, World Politics Review wrote.  Meanwhile, analysts say that it wasn’t Boluarte’s failure to tackle rising crime that got her impeached but that lawmakers realized her usefulness to them was over – that support for her would hurt their 2026 election campaigns. In 2022, serving as vice president, Boluarte took over the top job following the ouster of far-left President Pedro Castillo, who was impeached for attempting to dissolve Congress to prevent his removal, the BBC explained. Without her own political party in Congress, she was only able to govern due to the support of an informal coalition of right-wing and centrist lawmakers. During her administration, these politicians effectively reshaped Peru’s institutions to protect themselves from corruption investigations, a move that included weakening law enforcement and the judicial system, thereby empowering criminal networks. Analysts say that’s why Boluarte’s impeachment should not be viewed as resolving a political problem. Rather, it actually deepened Peru’s crisis to bring the country to a breaking point. They add that the upcoming election – which has no clear frontrunner yet – could still serve up a reformist leader who could address crime and corruption and shore up Peru’s democracy. Or it may lead to a populist president who capitalizes on the widespread frustration with insecurity and inflation by promising strict order among an electorate that feels abandoned by its leaders. “Peru’s crisis is no longer just about corruption or governance – it is about the basic survival of the rule of law,” wrote Martin Cassinelli of the Atlantic Council. “The October protests should not be seen as another episode in the country’s cyclical instability but as a warning that the old model – political chaos insulated from economic collapse – has possibly reached its breaking point. Unless the next government restores both security and institutional credibility, Peru’s democracy risks becoming not merely ungovernable, but unrecognizable.”