The collapse of Peru

Peru reeled on Wednesday for three hectic hours.

The unexpected decision of President Pedro Castillo to dissolve Congress, impose a curfew and rule by decree to avoid submitting to a vote of no confidence put the Andean country on the brink of the abyss.

The firm rejection of the Constitutional Court, which immediately qualified the maneuver as a coup d'état, as well as the Army's refusal to support the attempt, allowed Congress to continue working and agreed to the dismissal of Castillo and the oath of his vice president, Dina Boluarte, 60 years old, as head of state.

Once the acute phase of the crisis has been overcome, many points remain to be clarified, but few doubt, both inside and outside the country, that if Castillo's plan had prospered, Peru would have suffered a strong implosion of freedoms.

The failure of Castillo, whose judicial destiny is still uncertain, presumably buries his political career.

When he took office on July 28, 2021, after an extremely polarized election against Keiko Fujimori, his humble origins and his

They made some sectors harbor hopes for change in a country constantly subjected to political turmoil.

But the government compass quickly lost its bearings.

In a short time, Castillo changed cabinets five times, faced a barrage of scandals, and distanced himself from his social base.

Increasingly cornered, in recent months he has also been hit by corruption, an endemic evil in Peruvian presidents, to the point that the attorney general pointed out to him for leading an alleged "criminal organization" destined to enrich himself by rigging contracts.

Castillo also did not know how to manage the express support that he received in recent months from some of the region's progressive leaders when the president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, came out in explicit defense of him, or, just a week ago,

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Follow live the last hour of the political crisis in Peru

With this baggage he faced the motion of censure on Wednesday.

And instead of respecting the formal channels, Castillo chose to seek his personal salvation just a few hours before with measures as alarming as they were dangerous.

Saving the distances, for many Peruvians this maneuver reminded them of the disastrous month of April 1992, when the autocrat Alberto Fujimori ordered the closure of Congress and the judiciary intervened: today the president is arrested in the same Barbadillo prison by order of the prosecution.

Opportunely stopping the attempt by the rest of the powers of the State, Peru now has a new president, the first in the history of the Andean country, and an institutional body that has shown enough muscle to clearly reject a dark path, typical of other Latin American times. .

But this does not mean that it is no longer a transitory solution and that can easily lead to a new storm.

Not in vain, in six years there have been six presidents, the tentacles of corruption have spread through the instances of power and distrust of the rulers has grown in the population.