Peru is considered a democracy in the sense that it has competitive, fair, and free elections, but the political instability, polarization, and institutional conflicts that it had during Pedro Castillo’s presidency revealed that its democracy is one that remains weak. However, just because it has fair and free elections does not necessarily mean that the country itself has a strong or stable democracy. The Economist highlights the difficulty of measuring countries’ democratic backsliding, showing why it’s important to look beyond the country’s elections when evaluating the condition of its democracy. In the case of Peru and the conflict between Castello and Congress, along with the political instability that followed his removal, it raised questions about whether the democratic institutions were working efficiently. Pedro Castillo was elected as the president of Peru in 2021 and served till 2022 in a very close election. Castillo was part of the Leftist Party, and his competitor, Keiko Fujimori, was part of the right-wing party. This is the political party system that Peru uses, a 2 party system in which the parties are these 2 parties: the right and the left. This election was very controversial because of how close the votes were and because of the allegations that Fujimori made against Castillo. The allegations that she brought did cause him to lose a lot of voters because of the distrust they already had in the political system before the election, but even these questionable comments made about him also helped lead to his downfall because later he was questioned about political corruption and about gang relations.

The election results were not released until July because of allegations of electoral fraud made by Fujimori; the National Jury of Elections (JNE) found Fujimori’s claims to be false, and the election was deemed free and fair by both local and international election monitors. That same year, a new Congress was elected in April polls, though no party won a majority of seats. Castillo’s Perú Libre became the largest party in the legislature, taking 37 seats, followed by Fujimori’s right-wing Fuerza Popular party, which had 24 seats.

Castillo grew up in Puña. In 2002, he joined the centrist Perú Posible party, and he ran unsuccessfully for mayor of the Anguía district of Cajamarca. He remained a member of Perú Posible until the party ended in 2017. Castillo had become actively involved in a teachers’ union, helping to lead a nationwide teachers’ strike in 2017, which lasted several months. The strike ended after the government threatened to fire teachers who did not return to work. However, the government made a number of promises to the strikers, like moving up a proposed timeline for salary increases for teachers and offering teachers early retirement. When Vladimir Cerrón, the leader of Perú Libre, was not allowed to run for president in 2021 because of his conviction on corruption charges, the small socialist party recruited Castillo to become their candidate for that election.

His campaign soon gained traction because he tapped into voter anger over inequality in the country, which had been a problem that had been worsened by the economic issues because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Castillo’s campaign slogan, “No more poor in a rich country,” made his stance clear on making certain that profits from the country’s lucrative mineral industries would be shared by all Peruvians. The campaign also shows how economic inequality can influence democratic politics. In Rau and Stokes ‘ article in PNAS, they found that income inequality is one of the stronger drivers of democratic erosion, and they explained that inequality could contribute to political polarization and weakening of confidence in political institutions. This is what happened because a lot of the people in Peru, especially in the poor areas, believed this because of his promises to represent communities and address economic inequality within Peru. This links back to Modernization Theory because of how he was campaigning for these broad social changes and was focusing his campaign on economic development in poorer areas. He promised to initiate the drafting of a new constitution, which would later lead to his downfall. Many rural voters came to identify with him, and he emerged as the surprise winner in the first round of presidential voting in April 2021. They identified with him because he was one of the only people who brought up these issues and came from a similar background as these voters, and as somebody who is not from the capital, he could understand these problems and have a personal connection to them.

Since no other candidate achieved the 50 percent of the vote that was needed to win the election outright, Castillo advanced to a runoff against the second-place finisher, Keiko Fujimori. The extremely close election first appeared to favour Fujimori, but the race tightened as votes came in from outlying districts. The final count gave Castillo a narrow victory of about 44,000 votes, the BBC reported. Fujimori claimed that the election had been tainted by fraud and refused to concede, but international observers did not report any voting irregularities. Peru’s electoral authority, the National Jury of Elections, eventually dismissed Fujimori’s objections and declared Castillo the winner. He was sworn in as president on July 28, 2021. But once he became president, he was investigated for several things because of allegations of corruption. They also tried to impeach him, but that did not go through, and his own cabinet did not like him and tried to expel him; because of this, his public approval rating dropped low.

On December 7, 2022, Congress wanted to take a third impeachment effort, but Castello attempted to block that effort.  Because of this, he announced that he would be dissolving the legislature, forming a new “exceptional emergency government”.  This links to Agency-based Theory because of Castillo’s attempt at regime change. After he announced this, Congress quickly responded by holding an emergency session the same day, in which the overwhelming majority voted to remove Castello from office. Congress replaced him with his vice president, Dina Boluarte, who made history as the first woman president. As a result, he was arrested on charges of rebellion and conspiracy while attempting to flee to the Mexican Embassy. Following his arrest and removal from office, mass protests broke out throughout the country, mainly in the south where people demanded the release of Castello and the resignation of the new president. Because of these protests, they had to close major roads in Cusco, and they also closed Machu Picchu, one of Peru’s most prominent tourist attractions. Violence had erupted, and law enforcement responded aggressively to the protesters; by the end of January, nearly 60 people had been killed in the protest-related violence. This connects to the idea of “Perils of Presidentialism” by Juan Linz, in which he argues that parliamentary systems are better for democracy than presidencies because of five reasons: Competing vs. Clear Legitimacy, Fixed vs. Flexible Terms, Winner Take All vs. Power Sharing, Presidential vs. Prime Ministerial “Style”, and Outsider vs. Insider Executives. Linz says that these factors, in the long term, increase the likelihood that the presidential systems will be taken over by authoritarians.

During his presidency, Freedom House rated Peru as partially free, but after he was arrested and a new president was sworn in, it changed to free. ICTJ stated that Castillo was sentenced to 11.5 years. His removal from office and later his arrest showed that the checks and balances that were put in place clearly could not stop this, and that there would have to be changes made; it also showed how political corruption ran deep inside the system and how people did not grasp how bad it could get until the situation happened. It also revealed that the executive power would have to have more limits imposed on it so that this could not happen again.