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‘Essential ingredient’ for halting corruption in Peru? Common good.

When Peru’s former President Pedro Castillo tried to dissolve Congress and rule by edict last December, he landed himself in a dubious club of recent presidents either under investigation or in jail for corruption.

“Corruption has been the downfall of our presidents for the past 30 years,” says Raúl Ibañez, a radiologist in Lima who is among many here who say corruption is a central factor in Peru’s instability and the government’s failure to develop conditions for people like him to build a better life. Since Mr. Castillo’s so-called self-coup, Peru has fallen into political crisis and faced sporadic, deadly protests against the interim president.

Why We Wrote This

Despite facing multiple political and democratic crises over the past few decades, Peruvians are homing in on what they see as a root cause in need of repair: corruption.

Nearly 90% of Peruvians believe that between half and all of their political leaders are involved in corruption, according to a 2021 AmericasBarometer survey conducted by the Latin American Public Opinion Project at Vanderbilt University. And they consider corruption the country’s second-most important problem negatively impacting people’s lives, surpassed only by public security.

“That finding goes against the idea … that corruption is an evil that is part of politics but one that doesn’t really affect the average citizen,” says Carlos Arroyo from Proética, the Peruvian chapter of Transparency International.

For Raúl Ibañez, Peru’s political crisis and the sometimes-violent unrest shaking the country in recent months are rooted in what he calls the “scourge of our country.”

“Corruption has been the downfall of our presidents for the past 30 years,” he says, including former President Pedro Castillo, who has sat in prison since early December following an attempt to dissolve Congress and rule by edict.

Mr. Castillo joins a dubious club of seven recent presidents who have either been imprisoned or investigated for graft. But corruption isn’t contained to Peru’s top leadership; for the past two decades it’s touched everything from the delivery of public services like health care and education, to members of Congress. Mr. Ibañez, a radiologist sitting in a shaded Lima Park with his wife and university-student son on a recent afternoon, is among the many Peruvians who say corruption is a central factor in the country’s instability and the government’s failure to develop conditions for people like him to build better lives.

Why We Wrote This

Despite facing multiple political and democratic crises over the past few decades, Peruvians are homing in on what they see as a root cause in need of repair: corruption.

“By filling their own pockets through corruption, [politicians] are harming the ability of others to provide for their families,” says Mr. Ibañez. “That’s what so infuriates people.”

Some 88% of Peruvians believe that between half and all of their political leaders are involved in corruption, according to a 2021 AmericasBarometer survey conducted by the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) at Vanderbilt University. That’s the highest of any country in Latin America, a region where public perceptions of corruption in politics is generally high.

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