Endemic presidential instability? Institutional and political culture explanations for enduring political crisis in Peru (2016-2023)

Since the year 2016, Peru has had six presidents. Two elected and two interim presidents could not finish their respective tenures, and one National Congress was dissolved following a polemic constitutional interpretation. Despite a renewed electoral cycle (with the respective restructuring of political representation in Congress), executive-legislative relations have continued to deteriorate. Social protests have reached unprecedented levels of contention while political elites have had serious difficulties to forge agreements in order to surmount endemic political crises. In this paper, we elaborate an explanation of the ‘endless Peruvian instability’ based on empirical analysis of roll-call voting in three Legislatures (2016-2020; 2020-2021; 2021-) and nationally representative survey data. In this regard, the Peruvian permanent crisis is explained by the combination of institutional and public opinion factors. On the one hand, without enduring political parties, Executives without legislative majorities have serious difficulties to get congressional shields. Since 2016 there have been nine attempts from Congress to remove presidents from office: two of these succeeding. In the previous ten years (2006-2016) there was only one attempt to remove a president from office, and it was rejected early in the parliamentary process. In a Legislative characterized by volatile legislators’ partisan affiliations, incumbent and opposition coalitions must be built constantly. On the other hand, socially uprooted political parties have created permanent political disaffection. Presidents have low levels of approval and Executives are very unpopular (though Congress is even less popular.) Since 2019, more than 59% of Peruvians are in favor of dissolving Congress, the highest proportion in the Americas according to LAPOP (The Latin American Public Opinion Project.) Social unrest has challenged political instability with an unexpected capacity to sustain protests despite a poorly organized civil society.