The Recent Past

The 2011 elections brought to office Ollanta Humala, a left-of-centre nationalist with a military background. He narrowly defeated Keiko Fujimori in the second round. Under pressure from business sectors, he quickly abandoned his radical blueprint for reform in favour of maintaining the economic status quo. His government witnessed repeated challenges from communities protesting about mining, especially in Cajamarca and in various regions of southern Peru.

The 2016 elections were finally won, again by the narrowest of margins, by Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, an international financier and former economy minister (under Toledo), defeating Keiko Fujimori once again. With an absolute majority of seats in Congress, Fujimori’s Fuerza Popular party unleashed a campaign to challenge Kuczynski whose victory it never fully acknowledged. It forced various ministers to resign, finally forcing the president himself to resign in March 2018. Kuczynski was replaced by his vice-president, Martín Vizcarra.

Kuczynski’s period in government coincided with outbreak of the Lava Jato (Car Wash) scandals in Brazil, centring on the bribery activities of Odebrecht and other Brazilian construction companies. As a result of plea-bargaining it became clear that Odebrecht and others had routinely financed the electoral campaigns of a succession of Peruvian presidents and other top political figures. These included Toledo, Humala and Kuczynski, as well as Keiko Fujimori, Susana Villarán and Luis Castañeda Lossio (the last two former mayors of Lima).