The limits of presidential impeachment in Latin America

Impeachment is an important check on executive power in presidential democracies. It is a constitutional tool to remove power-hungry presidents who threaten democracy, disrespect the law, or are involved in cases of corruption or scandalous behaviour. However, impeachment also opens the door to partisan and opportunistic interests. Since re-democratization in the 1970s and 1980s, 24 Latin American presidents failed to complete their constitutionally fixed terms, often due to serious developments in the economy, social mobilisations, and political scandals. In at least ten of these episodes, legislators used impeachment or impeachment-like procedures to dismiss the president. Analysing the last set of impeachments –those occurring in Latin America since 2012– we show that the political use of impeachments has become the norm, but their use has been unable to provide the expected answers and has often fed ongoing crises with further disenchantment and political instability.