Why was President Pedro Castillo impeached and arrested?

Congress voted to oust Castillo, 53, hours after he made an unscheduled television address to declare that he was closing down congress, imposing a curfew, establishing an “emergency government” and would rule by decree until new elections for a constituent assembly could be held. The declaration was quickly and widely denounced as an attempted coup to evade impeachment and criminal prosecution for alleged graft. Congress, undissolved, voted 101 to 6 to impeach Castillo for “moral incapacity” — a 19th-century term initially intended to cover mental infirmity — and declared the presidency vacant. Questions about Castillo’s whereabouts swirled — he was rumored to be seeking asylum at the Mexican Embassy in Lima, a request the ambassador said would be honored — before he was arrested outside the presidential palace. The public prosecutor’s office said he was accused of “rebellion” and “ violating the constitutional order .” There were minor clashes between Castillo supporters and police outside the police station where he was detained, the Associated Press reported. The leftist former rural schoolteacher and labor leader had long accused opponents of conducting a political witch hunt. But his emergency government declaration Wednesday shocked even his allies; cabinet members resigned, and his impeachment lawyer withdrew from his case. The military leadership and the U.S. Embassy in Lima both rejected the move. Castillo, who rose to national prominence in 2017 as the leader of a wildcat strike, ran for president last year as the candidate of an obscure Marxist-Leninist party promising to prioritize the poor. He took advantage of a crowded field and voter dissatisfaction with Peru’s corrupt political establishment to win a surprise victory in the first round of the election, and then defeated polarizing right-wing former congresswoman Keiko Fujimori in the runoff. But from the beginning, his administration was beset by chaos, ineptitude and accusations of graft.

Why did Castillo try to dissolve Peru’s Congress?

Congress was set to debate whether to remove Castillo on corruption charges on Wednesday afternoon. Opponents had tried twice before to impeach him but fell short of the two-thirds supermajority needed to convict. This time, it seemed that they might have the votes to oust him. Pressure had grown with the attorney general’s release of a 376-page complaint in October detailing claims he had taken kickbacks for infrastructure deals and sold government jobs to the highest bidders. Attorney General Patricia Benavides had urged the lifting of Castillo’s presidential immunity so that he could be criminally prosecuted and potentially removed from office. His declaration Wednesday was viewed as a last-ditch effort to retain power, but he had neither the constitutional authority nor the political support to succeed.

Who is Dina Boluarte, Peru’s new president?

Dina Ercilia Boluarte Zegarra, 60, is a lawyer who served as Castillo’s vice president and minister for development and social inclusion. She was not well known before she joined Castillo last year on the far-left Free Peru ticket. Boluarte was born in Apurímac, a mountainous region in the south, and is fluent in Spanish and Quechua, a family of Indigenous languages spoken in the Andes and beyond. She earned a law degree and pursued postgraduate studies at San Martín de Porres Private University in Lima and worked for several years at the National Registry of Identification and Civil Status. In 2018, Boluarte ran for mayor of Surquillo , a district of some 90,000 people in Lima, and received less than 4 percent of the vote. After being sworn in as president Wednesday, she spoke about her modest upbringing in a small town and called for “the broadest possible unity of all Peruvians.” She had distanced herself from Castillo in recent weeks, including refusing to serve as a minister in his cabinet. “I reject Pedro Castillo’s decision to break with the constitutional order by closing Congress,” she tweeted after Castillo’s declaration Wednesday. “This is a coup d’etat against the State that deepens the political and institutional crisis, and Peruvian society will have to overcome the crisis strictly following the law.”

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What to know about Peru’s ‘attempted coup’ and first female president

By Kelsey Ables

Kim Bellware

and

Adela Suliman

Updated December 8, 2022 at 10:58 a.m. EST|Published December 8, 2022 at 8:04 a.m. EST

Former Peruvian vice president Dina Boluarte takes the oath of office as president of Peru next to congress President José Williams in Lima on Wednesday. (Guadalupe Pardo/AP)

Even for Peru, a country that has been through five presidents in little more than two years, the past 24 hours were tumultuous.

President Pedro Castillo, facing possible impeachment Wednesday on corruption charges, tried to dissolve congress to rule by decree. Lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to remove him from office, and he was soon arrested. Dina Boluarte, Castillo’s vice president, was sworn in as his successor, becoming the 200-year-old nation’s first female president.

In her first remarks as president, Boluarte denounced what she said was an “attempted coup … that has not found an echo in the institutions, nor in the street.” She called for a “political truce” among factions and asked for space and time to “rescue the country.” Her term is due to last until 2026, but there are no guarantees in a country that has averaged a president a year for the past seven years.

Here’s what to know.