Peru’s political crisis, explained - Vox.com

A left-wing demand that such elections be accompanied by a constituent assembly to rewrite the country’s constitution — a relic of the Fujimori period which helped contribute to the present crisis by allowing the president to dissolve Congress and rule by decree — also failed, though polling now suggests that 69 percent of Peruvians would support such an effort.

According to Zaraí Toledo Orozco, a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Inter-American Policy and Research (CIPR) at Tulane University, while there is a desire for change among broad swaths of the country, Peru’s “c ampesinos, ” or rural poor, lack representation in a national political party that could fight for their priorities.

Terruqueo, or smearing opponents by falsely accusing them of terrorism, has bubbled up in the recent protests on the part of the government, providing a degree of impunity for the use of excessive force against demonstrators.

That body has been at odds with the presidency since the surprise win of former finance minister Pedro Pablo Kuczynski — popularly known as PPK — over Keiko Fujimori in that year’s presidential contest.

Congress also wielded its impeachment authority with zest, creating a pattern of animosity between the legislative body and the executive office that has continued through Castillo’s tenure, as have corruption scandals like the one that helped bring down PPK.

The question of where Peru can possibly go from here doesn’t have a satisfying answer, experts told Vox, because there’s no real desire or mechanism on the part of the state to engage with the protesters other than through violence.