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

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.

“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.

Peruvians’ perception of high corruption leads, in turn, to a collapse of trust in the country’s institutions, says Noam Lupu, associate director of LAPOP.

“You can see that as the perceptions of corruption go up, the trust in institutions and confidence in the political system go down,” he says. “People lose faith that the political system is representing them and their family’s interests.”

“Pockets of the powerful”

Mr. Castillo’s replacement, his vice president Dina Boluarte, was quick to zero in on weeding out corruption when she assumed the presidency on Dec. 7. But nearly 60 deaths among pro-Castillo protesters since she took office – most coming at the hands of riot police – and other accusations against her have poisoned her ability to make headway, analysts say.

Protests have largely retreated to Mr. Castillo’s stronghold of support in the country’s south, where makeshift anti-Boluarte roadblocks and workers strikes continue to pop up.

Many Peruvians who sat out recent protests say they might be tempted to hit the streets if there were a march focused specifically on corruption.

“I didn’t march, but I can assure you my outrage over corruption is as strong as the sentiments the demonstrators were expressing,” says Rosario Madrid, a retired schoolteacher visiting family in Lima.

Ms. Madrid says that accompanying her German husband on long-term work assignments in Chile and Germany revealed to her that her native country’s corruption is not the norm.

“When you go outside Peru and see other realities, you ask yourself why the corruption is the way it is here,” she says. “Peru is a country of riches, but it seems that here more than elsewhere the fruits of those riches go into the pockets of the powerful and wealthy,” she says.

“Certainly not into the public schools,” she adds, “which as a teacher I find especially damaging for the future of my country.”

Indeed Peruvians consider corruption the country’s second most important problem negatively impacting average people’s lives, surpassed only by deteriorating public safety, according to the anti-corruption organization Proética, which conducted a national survey last August.

“That finding goes against the idea we have heard for some time that corruption is an evil that is part of politics, but one that doesn’t really affect the average citizen,” says Carlos Arroyo, director of citizens and open government audits at Proética in Lima. “What we find is that 59% of the population feels strongly that corruption has a direct impact on their family’s economic situation,” he says.

Peru’s office of the comptroller general estimates more than $5 billion is lost annually to corruption, Mr. Arroyo says. “That is money that people feel is coming out of their pocket but is not benefiting them.”

How did we get here?

So why is corruption so prevalent, and why do Peruvians report feeling its impact at higher rates than other Latin Americans? The reasons are myriad, experts say, and range from weak institutions generally – but paradoxically a relatively strong public prosecutorial system that has successfully pursued corruption cases – to well-intentioned but counterproductive reforms.

An example of the latter is the ban on congressional reelection for second consecutive terms. The measure had the goal of tackling the problem of entrenched corrupt members of Congress, but many say it instead turned the five-year term into a race to reap as many material benefits as possible while keeping politicians free from the accountability that reelection can provide.

In the current political crisis, holding early elections for a new Congress and president could be one solution, says Gino Costa, a human rights expert and former congressman who recently published a book chronicling the weakening of Peru’s democracy. But, “members of the current Congress are resisting early elections because they would lose the privileges and benefits of their office,” he says. “So, in this case, prohibiting reelection is a problem.”

At least seven members of the current Congress multiplied their income and assets astronomically over their year and a half in office, according to a recent study by Centro Liber, an investigative organization that promotes public access to government information. A number of those congresswomen and men are already under investigation for corruption.

Peru’s harrowing decade of terrorism in the 1980s also plays a role in corruption’s hold on society.

Former President Alberto Fujimori “solved” the terrorism crisis by defeating the violent Shining Path guerrilla organization, says Peruvian anti-corruption expert José Ugaz. But Mr. Fujimori accomplished this through “a total capture of the state” that converted government into a kleptocracy and left Peru with “institutions that were barely standing,” Mr. Ugaz says.

“The Fujimori decade left corruption embedded in the structure of power,” he says, instilling many with the fatalistic refrain concerning corrupt leaders: “He steals, but he gets things done.”

“Essential ingredient”

Mr. Ibañez, the radiologist, says that at the base of Peru’s corruption scourge is the tendency of public officials to act in their own self-interest instead of seeing government as a tool for the betterment of all.

“The sense of the common good has not been at the heart of our national agenda,” agrees Mr. Ugaz, the anti-corruption expert. Instead, he says, since the arrival of the Spaniards, Peru has had an “extractive” development model based on enriching oneself rather than giving back or improving people’s lives.

“Corruption thrives when the focus of our political leaders is ‘I’m providing for me and my people’ rather than a national project based on the common good,” Mr. Ugaz says. “We know that successful countries have a strong sense of common good for building a national project, but the repeated corruption scandals we’ve experienced right up to Castillo tell us we are lacking that essential ingredient.”

Reducing corruption in Peru won’t be easy. It requires two elements that can’t be accomplished overnight: reestablishing public trust in institutions, and a cultural revolution that “makes room for solidarity and a sense of empathy” among Peruvians, Mr. Ugaz says.

“Corruption erodes trust, and if you don’t have trust you can’t build a common good,” he says. Though, he’s seen some encouraging signs that society may be changing.

During the pandemic a number of ollas comunes, community soup kitchens, sprung up in neighborhoods experiencing food insecurity, signaling to Mr. Ugaz the solidarity necessary to build a sense of “common good.”

The Castillo crisis has spawned some attempts at building dialogue across political and class lines, he says. And there are indications that a new class of political actors more focused on building a better Peru for all Peruvians may be emerging.

“We need a renewal … that will put the priority on strengthening our institutions,” Mr. Costa says.

Back on the park bench, Mr. Ibañez is more succinct about the solution to Peru’s corruption.

“We need honest politicians,” he says. “That’s it.”