Will Freeman writes:

President Dina Boluarte this month became the third Peruvian leader to be impeached in five years. With an approval rating hovering around 3 percent, she had become, by some estimates, one of the most loathed elected heads of state in the world.

After her ouster, you would think the country would be celebrating. Ms. Boluarte, who was thrust into office in December 2022 after her predecessor was impeached, was widely blamed by Peruvians for failing to prevent state security forces’ killing of protesters and later a mounting wave of gang violence, extortions and murders. The swearing-in of José Jerí, who was next in line as president of Congress, as interim president, with general elections scheduled for April, would seem to signal that a reset could be around the corner.

But in Peru, who occupies the presidency matters less and less. For years, the president has governed largely on paper. Real decision-making power has shifted to a diffuse coalition of political power brokers, many of whom have been accused of having ties to corruption networks. These include Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of Peru’s last autocrat and a likely contender for the presidency; a prominent party leader, José Luna Gálvez; and a well-known lawmaker, Waldemar Cerrón, among several others. Peruvians know that a new president doesn’t necessarily mean a change in who rules: even after Ms. Boluarte’s impeachment, many continued to protest the government’s failure to curb organized crime.

In Peru, there is no elected autocrat or populist strongman. Mr. Jerí is the seventh president to hold office since 2018. But many of the basic freedoms we associate with functional democracies are fading away: the freedom to work without being extorted, to denounce crime or official corruption without retaliation or even to walk down the street without fear of gangs.

For those used to associating democratic erosion with strongmen such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin or Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, this might sound strange. Western liberalism has long held that the main threat to political and personal freedom comes from unconstrained rulers. As long as there are constraints on state power — working checks and balances — freedom is supposed to flourish. How does freedom disappear without one ruler or ruling party taking it away?

The recent history of Peru and several other Latin American democracies including Brazil, Colombia and Mexico shows there is another, even more insidious way freedom can die for large parts of society: when the state is unable or unwilling to constrain predatory private powers — narco-traffickers, illegal gold miners, human smugglers, corruption rackets — and the officials and politicians who go into business with them. [Continue reading…]