Politics of Peru
The politics of the Republic of Peru takes place in a framework of a unitary semi-presidential representative democratic republic, whereby the President of Peru is both head of state and head of government, and of a pluriform multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the President and the Government. Legislative power is vested in both the Government and the Congress. The Judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature.
Traditionally weak political parties saw their support collapse further in Peru since 2000, paving the way for the rise of personalist leaderships. The political parties in the congress of Peru are, according to political scientist Lucía Dammert, "agglomerations of individual and group interests more than solid and representative parties".
The historian Antonio Zapata describes Peru as a "right-wing country"; the only left-wing government in contemporary history until the election of Pedro Castillo in 2021 was that of Juan Velasco Alvarado, author of an agrarian reform and the nationalization of strategic sectors. Peru is also one of the most socially conservative nations in Latin America.
Currently, almost all major media and political parties in the country are in favour of economic liberalism. Those opposed to the neoliberal status quo or involved in left-wing politics are often targeted with fear mongering attacks called terruqueos, where individuals or groups are associated with terrorists involved with the internal conflict in Peru.
History
The weakness of political parties in Peruvian politics has been recognized throughout the nation's history, with competing leaders fighting for power following the collapse of the Spanish Empire's Viceroyalty of Peru. The Peruvian War of Independence saw aristocrats with land and wealthy merchants cooperate to fight the Spanish Empire, though the aristocrats would later obtain greater power and lead an oligarchy headed by caudillos that defended the existing feudalist haciendas. During the time of the Chincha Islands War, guano extraction in Peru led to the rise of an even wealthier aristocracy that established a plutocracy. Anarchist politician Manuel González Prada accurately detailed that parties in Peru shortly after the War of the Pacific were controlled by a wealthy oligarchy that used candidate-based political parties to control economic interests; a practice that continues to the present day. This oligarchy was supported by the Catholic Church, which would ignore inequalities in Peru and instead assist governments with appeasing the impoverished majority. At this time, the armed forces of Peru were seen by the public as ensuring territorial sovereignty and order, granting military leaders the ability to blame political parties and justify coup d'états against established leaders of the nation who were facing socioeconomic difficulties. This led to a pattern throughout Peru's political history of an elected leader drafting and proposing a policy while the military would later overthrow the said leader, adopting and implementing the elected official's proposals. Combatting ideologies of indigenismo of the majority and the elite holding Europhile values would also arise at the end of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century.Following industrialization and World War I, economic expansion in Peru resulted with rural groups demanding more interaction with the wealthy urban areas and embracing indigenismo. Labor and student movements – especially the anarcho-syndicalist Peruvian Regional Workers' Federation – would arise at this time while nearly overtaking the existing oligarchical structure, though the coup and subsequent dictatorship of Augusto B. Leguía for the next decade would quash hopes for further progress. During the Leguía dictatorship emerged two political thinkers inspired by González Prada; José Carlos Mariátegui and Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre. In 1924 from Mexico, university reform leaders in Peru who had been forced into exile by the government founded the American People's Revolutionary Alliance, which had a major influence on the country's political life. APRA is thus largely a political expression of the university reform and workers' struggles of the years 1918–1920. The movement draws its influences from the Mexican Revolution and its 1917 Constitution – particularly on issues of agrarianism and indigenism – and to a lesser extent from the Russian Revolution. Its leader, Haya de la Torre, declares that APRA as a "Marxist interpretation of the American reality", it nevertheless moves away from it on the question of class struggle and on the importance given to the struggle for the political unity of Latin America. In 1928, the Peruvian Socialist Party was founded, notably under the leadership of José Carlos Mariátegui, himself a spectator of the European socialist movements who maintained relationships with the Communist Party of Italy, including the leadership of Palmiro Togliatti and Antonio Gramsci. Shortly afterwards in 1929, the party created the General Confederation of Workers. Following the assassination of President Luis Miguel Sánchez Cerro in 1933 by an Aprista, APRA was persecuted in Peru. Persecution of APRA persisted until about 1956 when it became allied with the elite in Peru.
Following World War II, the military's ideology began to distance itself from the wealthy elite when the Center of High Military Studies began to promote studies of Manuel González Prada and José Carlos Mariátegui, creating officers that viewed the elite as sacrificing national sovereignty in order to acquire foreign capital and resulted with an undeveloped, reliant nation. Thus in 1963, Fernando Belaúnde Terry was elected president and proposed the first pro-worker and peasant policies for Peru. Belaúnde's administration was tolerant of the political left, and a variety of Marxist parties expanded during his time in office.
Belaúnde was overthrown by General Juan Velasco Alvarado in 1968, who implemented Belaúnde's policies in his own unique manner. The Shining Path guerilla group emerged in 1968 led by Abimael Guzmán, beginning the internal conflict in Peru between the state and Shining Path forces.
The 1979 Constitution established universal suffrage in Peru and resulted in the return of democracy at the national level.
During the Lost Decade of the 1980s and internal conflict, political parties became weaker once again. Angered by President Alan García's inability to combat the crises in the nation, the armed forces began planning a coup to establish a neoliberal government in the late 1980s with Plan Verde. Peruvians shifted their support for authoritarian leader Alberto Fujimori, who was supported by the military following his win in the 1990 Peruvian general election.
Fujimori essentially adopted the policies outlined in the military's Plan Verde and turned Peru into a neoliberal nation. Fujimori's civil-military government established sentiments in Peru that politics were slower than brute military force while governing. The 1979 Constitution was changed after the Fujimori's self-coup where the president dissolved the Congress and established the new 1993 Constitution. One of the changes to the 1979 Constitution was the possibility of the president's immediate re-election which made possible the re-election of Fujimori in the following years. After Fujimori's resignation, the transitional government of Valentín Paniagua changed Article 112 and called for new elections in 2001 where Alejandro Toledo was elected.
However, following the fall of the Fujimori government, Peru still lacked strong political parties, leaving the nation vulnerable to populist outsider politicians lacking experience. Regional parties then grew to become more popular as foreign investment increased during the 21st century, though their service to the elites sowed public distrust. On 28 July 2021, left-wing candidate Pedro Castillo was sworn in as the new President of Peru after a narrow win in a tightly contested run-off election. On 7 December 2022, the congress removed President Castillo from office. He was replaced by Vice President Dina Boluarte, the country's first female president. On 10 October 2025, Peru’s congress removed President Dina Boluarte from office and Jose Jeri was sworn in as Peru’s interim president.