On Dec. 7, Peru’s democracy passed a test. Its legislature, judiciary and military all rejected leftist President Pedro Castillo’s attempt to seize dictatorial powers; Congress immediately impeached Mr. Castillo and removed him from office. He now faces criminal charges. In the weeks since, however, a new and more difficult challenge has arisen: nationwide protests — some of them violent — organized partly by Mr. Castillo’s supporters but also expressing long-simmering social and economic dissatisfaction, especially among Indigenous peoples in highland regions. Crowds have blocked roads, attacked mines and forced the shutdown of the economically crucial tourist site at Machu Picchu.
Peru’s ill-prepared police have unfortunately responded with excessive force, sometimes deadly. Fifty-eight people have died, according to Peru’s national ombudsman: 47 in clashes with police and 10 because protesters blocked their access to medical care; meanwhile, a mob burned one police officer to death. The loss of life, though lamented by President Dina Boluarte, the former vice president who succeeded Mr. Castillo, damaged her political standing before she really had a chance to establish it.
Ms. Boluarte and a fragmented Congress have struggled to agree on a coherent political response. They need to find one, lest Peru’s crisis spin out of control.
To assign Peru’s incumbent executive and legislative branches primary responsibility for fixing the problem is not to absolve Mr. Castillo of creating it. That point seems to escape left-wing governments such as those in Mexico, Colombia, Argentina and Bolivia, which have inflamed the situation by voicing sympathy for Mr. Castillo and criticizing the successor government. Fortunately, the Biden administration adopted a supportive posture toward Ms. Boluarte; equally appropriately, it has called on her to hold accountable those responsible for police excesses.
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- The misery of Belarus’s political prisoners should not be ignored.
- Biden has a new border plan.
- The United States should keep the pressure on Nicaragua.
- America’s fight against inflation isn’t over.
- The Taliban has doubled down on the repression of women.
- The world’s ice is melting quickly.
Ihar Losik, one of hundreds of young people unjustly jailed in Belarus for opposing Alexander Lukashenko’s dictatorship, attempted suicide but was saved and sent to a prison medical unit, according to the human rights group Viasna. Losik, 30, a blogger who led a popular Telegram channel, was arrested in 2020 and is serving a 15-year prison term on charges of “organizing riots” and “incitement to hatred.” His wife is also a political prisoner. Read more about their struggle — and those of other political prisoners — in a recent editorial.
The Department of Homeland Security has provided details of a plan to prevent a migrant surge along the southern border. The administration would presumptively deny asylum to migrants who failed to seek it in a third country en route — unless they face “an extreme and imminent threat” of rape, kidnapping, torture or murder. Critics allege that this is akin to an illegal Trump-era policy. In fact, President Biden is acting lawfully in response to what was fast becoming an unmanageable flow at the border. Read our most recent editorial on the U.S. asylum system.
Some 222 Nicaraguan political prisoners left that Central American country for the United States in February. President Daniel Ortega released and sent them into exile in a single motion. Nevertheless, it appears that Mr. Ortega let them go under pressure from economic sanctions the United States imposed on his regime when he launched a wave of repression in 2018. The Biden administration should keep the pressure on. Read recent editorials about the situation in Nicaragua.
Inflation remains stubbornly high at 6.4 percent in January. The Federal Reserve’s job is not done in this fight. More interest rate hikes are needed. Read a recent editorial about inflation and the Fed.
Afghanistan’s rulers had promised that barring women from universities was only temporary. But private universities got a letter on Jan. 28 warning them that women are prohibited from taking university entrance examinations. Afghanistan has 140 private universities across 24 provinces, with around 200,000 students. Out of those, some 60,000 to 70,000 are women, the AP reports. Read a recent editorial on women’s rights in Afghanistan.
A new study finds that half the world’s mountain glaciers and ice caps will melt even if global warming is restrained to 1.5 degrees Celsius — which it won’t be. This would feed sea-level rise and imperil water sources for hundreds of millions. Read a recent editorial on how to cope with rising seas, and another on the policies needed to fight climate change.
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Nevertheless, she and Congress have no choice but to accept political reality, which is that they, and the system they head, lack public support. Eighty percent of Peruvians surveyed in December expressed dissatisfaction with the way democracy works in their country.
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The best cure for what ails Peruvian democracy is more democracy: Presidential and congressional elections, scheduled for 2026, should be moved up significantly to give Peru a fresh political start. To be sure, this would meet one of the protesters’ demands, thus appearing to reward a quasi-insurrection. Yet in contrast to their call for an immediate constitutional rewrite, it is a plausible demand, given the current president’s lack of a clear mandate and the dysfunctional partisan splits in Congress. Channeling discontent into electoral campaigning, at the end of which the people’s new choices could take office, could help stabilize the situation. At that point, Peru could undertake constitutional reforms aimed at preventing a repeat of this crisis.
The trick is to get from here to there within the existing constitutional framework, via appropriate legislation. Ms. Boluarte has floated various proposals for new elections in the fourth quarter of this year; her latest would have a new government installed for 4½ years starting in December. So far, Peru’s Congress has failed to act. These politicians seem to think they have more time to address their country’s crisis than might actually be the case.