Congress of the Republic of Peru in the context of Vacancy due to moral incapacity (Peru)

An ongoing long-term political crisis began in Peru during the presidency of Pedro Pablo Kuczynski in late 2016 and has substantially worsened under the rule of his various successors. The crisis has been marked by mass protests, labor strikes, corruption scandals, rising crime levels, political violence, and political instability that has led the country into a state of democratic backsliding and emerging authoritarianism.

Under Kuczynski's term, Peru had a divided government, with the Congress of the Republic being held by the right-wing opposition parties of Popular Force and its allies. This state of division within the government led to conflict between the executive and legislative branches of government. After a series of corruption scandals and attempts to remove him, Kuczysnki resigned under major pressure in March 2018. His successor, Martín Vizcarra, led a more confrontational approach towards Congress, vowing major reforms against corruption. As a result of the conflict, Vizcarra dissolved Congress in September 2019, sparking a constitutional crisis and snap legislative elections in January 2020, which led to Popular Force to lose its majority in Congress. Vizcarra would later be impeached and then removed from office in November 2020, with Congress installing Manuel Merino as president. The removal was widely categorized as a coup d'état, which led to mass protests and Merino's resignation after five days in office. He was later replaced with Francisco Sagasti.

Trujillo (Spanish: [tɾuˈxiʝo]; Quechua: Truhillu; Mochica: Cɥimor ) is a city in coastal northwestern Peru and the capital of the Department of La Libertad. It is the third most populous city and center of the third most populous metropolitan area of Peru. It is located on the banks of the Moche River, near its mouth at the Pacific Ocean, in the Moche Valley. This was a site of the great prehistoric Moche and Chimu cultures before the Inca conquest and subsequent expansion.

The Independence of Trujillo from Spain was proclaimed in the Historic Centre of Trujillo on December 29, 1820, and the city was honored in 1822 by the Congress of the Republic of Peru with the title "Meritorious City and Faithful to the Fatherland", for its role in the fight for Peruvian independence. Trujillo is the birthplace of Peru's judiciary.

The Political Constitution of the Republic of Peru (Spanish: Constitución Política del Perú; Southern Quechua: Perú Suyu Hatun Kamay Pirwa 1993) is the supreme law of Peru. The current constitution, enacted on 31 December 1993, is Peru's fifth in the 20th century and replaced the 1979 Constitution. The Constitution was drafted by the Democratic Constituent Congress that was convened by President Alberto Fujimori during the Peruvian Constitutional Crisis of 1992 that followed his 1992 self-coup and dissolution of Congress, and was promulgated on 29 December 1993. A Democratic Constitutional Congress (CCD) was elected in 1992, and the final text was approved in a 1993 referendum. The Constitution was primarily created by Fujimori and supporters without the participation of any opposing entities.

The 1993 Constitution of Peru differed originally from the 1979 Constitution in that it gave greater power to the president. For example, it allowed for reelection, reduced the bicameral 240-member congress to a unicameral 120 Congress of the Republic, not only affirmed the president's power to veto found in the 1979 Constitution, but also gave him the power to use a line item veto, and mandated that all tax laws receive prior approval by the Ministry of Economics and Finance. While the Constitution of 1979 allowed the president to dissolve congress after congress censured prime ministers three times, the 1993 constitution allows the president to do so after only two censures. The Constitution allows the president to decree laws as long as they first informs the Congress of their intent to do so. If the president dissolves Congress, the Constitution gives them the power to rule until the election of a new Congress within a four-month timeline, during which time the Standing Committee of the dissolved Congress will remain functioning. Following the ouster of President Alberto Fujimori, the Constitution was amended to bar the president from immediate re-election, a status quo that had prevailed for most of the time since the Great Depression. Subsequent constitutional amendments, laws of Congress, and Constitutional Court rulings have further changed the rules of interaction among branches of government.

Early parliamentary elections were held in Peru on 26 January 2020. The elections were called after President Martín Vizcarra constitutionally dissolved the Congress of the Republic on 30 September 2019.

All 130 congressmen corresponding to the 26 electoral districts were elected to serve the remainder of the 2016–2021 congressional period. It was the seventh parliamentary election under the 1993 Constitution, which created the current Congress of the Republic.

The removal of Martín Vizcarra, president of Peru, was initiated by the Congress of Peru on 8 October 2020 under the grounds of "permanent moral incapacity". On 20 October 2020, political factions Union for Peru, Podemos Perú, and Broad Front co-signed a series of articles of impeachment against President Vizcarra for alleged cases of corruption during his term as the governor of Moquegua. Vizcarra was removed from office on 9 November 2020 in a 105–16 vote.

Initially, the vote to start impeachment proceedings was scheduled for 31 October, but it was later extended to the first week of November. Finally it was decided that the vote and debate would be held on 2 November. When the date arrived, impeachment was initiated with 60 votes in favor, 40 against and 18 abstentions. Vizcarra attended the plenary session in Congress on 9 November to defend himself against the accusations.

Manuel Arturo Merino de Lama (born 20 August 1961) is a Peruvian politician who briefly served as President of Peru for five days between 10 and 15 November 2020. He also served as the President of Congress from 16 March 2020 to 15 November 2020. He was a Member of Congress (AP) representing the Tumbes constituency for the 2001–2006, 2011–2016, and 2020–2021 terms.

On 9 November 2020, the Congress impeached and removed President Martín Vizcarra from office on the grounds of "moral incapacity", a vague term dating back to the 19th century, relating to "mental incapacity" or "mental retardation". The move was seen as a coup by many Peruvians, with Vizcarra's removal resulting in the beginning of the 2020 Peruvian protests. The following day, as the President of the Peruvian Congress, Merino became the new president of Peru following the line of succession established in the nation's constitution. Five days after taking office, he resigned from the presidency after two deaths in the protests. Polls showed that 94% of Peruvians had disapproved of Merino's accession to the presidency. He was succeeded by Francisco Sagasti.

Francisco Rafael Sagasti Hochhausler ([fɾanˈsisko rafaˈel saˈɣasti xoˈxawsleɾ] ; born 10 October 1944) is a Peruvian engineer, academic, politician, and author who served as the president of Peru from November 2020 to July 2021.

Sagasti has worked as an advisor for economic development at the International Development Research Centre, World Bank, UNCSTD and the World Economic Forum. After the 1992 Peruvian constitutional crisis, Sagasti left his position at the World Bank to return to Peru. In 2016, he helped found the centrist Purple Party with Julio Guzmán. Following the dissolution of congress in 2019, he was elected into congress in January 2020, serving from March to November 2020 as a Member of Congress, representing the Lima constituency.

Alberto Kenya Fujimori Inomoto (26 July 1938 – 11 September 2024) was a Peruvian politician, professor, and engineer who served as the 54th president of Peru from 1990 to 2000. Born in Lima, Fujimori was the country's first president of Japanese descent, and was an agronomist and university rector prior to entering politics. Fujimori emerged as a politician during the midst of the internal conflict in Peru, the Peruvian Lost Decade, and the ensuing violence caused by the far-left guerilla group Shining Path. In office as president, Fujimori implemented a series of military reforms and responded to Shining Path with repressive and lethal force, halting the group's actions. He became known for his neoliberal political and economic ideology of Fujimorism, which pushed a free market economy and social conservatism. His administration was also controversial for alleged abuses of human rights and authoritarian tendencies.

In 1992, during his first presidential term, Fujimori, with the support of the National Intelligence Service and the Peruvian Armed Forces, adopted Plan Verde and carried out a self-coup against the Peruvian legislature and judiciary. Fujimori dissolved the Peruvian Congress and Supreme Court, effectively making him a dictator of Peru. The coup was criticized by Peruvian politicians, intellectuals and journalists, but was well received by the country's private business sector and a substantial part of the public. Following the coup d'état, Fujimori drafted a new constitution in 1993, which was approved in a referendum, and was elected as president for a second term in 1995 and controversially for a third term in 2000. Fujimori's time in office was marked by severe authoritarian measures, excessive use of propaganda, entrenched political corruption, multiple cases of extrajudicial killings, and human rights violations. Under the provisions of Plan Verde, Fujimori targeted members of Peru's indigenous community and subjected them to forced sterilizations.

Fujimorism (Spanish: Fujimorismo, Japanese: フジモリ主義, Hepburn: Fujimorishugi) is the policies and the political ideology of former President of Peru Alberto Fujimori as well as the personality cult built around him, his policies and his family, especially Keiko Fujimori. The ideology is defined by authoritarianism, its support for neoliberal economics, opposition to communism, and socially and culturally conservative stances such as opposition to LGBT rights and school curriculums including gender equality or sex education. Opponents of Fujimorism are known as anti-Fujimorists.

Since Alberto Fujimori's election, Fujimorism has continued to maintain influence throughout Peru's institutions with the assistance of the 1993 constitution, its neoliberal policies and the support of extractivism. Political involvement was largely deactivated until 2011 when it was brought back to the forefront by his children, Keiko and Kenji, with Keiko's party Popular Force controlling much of the Congress of the Republic of Peru from 2016 until 2020 through a system that was constitutionally drafted by her father. Since then, Fujimorism has obtained control of the majority of Peru's governing bodies.