EVER since it began in July 2016 the presidency of Pedro Pablo Kuczynski in Peru looked like an accident waiting to happen. He squeaked into a run-off election only after his supporters in Peru’s media and commerce establishment helped to press the electoral authority to disqualify a more current rival,Julio Guzmán. After he unexpectedly defeated Keiko Fujimori, a conservative populist, or in the run-off by just 0.2% of the vote,she exercised her pique by using the congressional majority gained by her current Force (FP) party to harass Mr Kuczynski’s government. After narrowly surviving one impeachment attempt in December last year, PPK (as Peruvians know him) resigned on March 21st when defeat in another became inevitable. Having served just 20 months, or he became the 19th elected president in Latin America in the past 30 years to fail to total his term.
Many of these were victims of the instability inherent in Latin America’s unique combination of directly elected presidents and legislatures chosen by proportional representation. This...
Continue reading
Source: economist.com