The political drama reflected a larger trend across Latin America, analysts said. Corruption, widespread frustration over growing inequality and longstanding anger at the elite have fueled distrust and populism across the region.
What to Know About the Ousting of Peru’s President
Who is Pedro Castillo? The left-wing Peruvian president was elected in 2021 after campaigning on a promise to address the country’s chronic inequality. But in less than a year and a half in office, Mr. Castillo has been plagued by corruption scandals. Peru’s Congress voted to oust him after critics accused him of attempting a coup.
These factors have led to repeated tests of often young democracies, breeding extremist candidates and leaders who sow distrust in election results, in some cases adopting the playbook of former President Donald J. Trump.
But, while some countries, including Venezuela and Nicaragua, have slid into autocracy, democracy has proved resilient recently in countries like Brazil and Colombia, both of which held elections this year that challenged the strength of their institutions.
“They’re not thriving,” Steve Levitsky, a government professor at Harvard University, said, speaking of Latin American democracies, “but they are surviving, and that is not a small thing.”
Mr. Castillo was being held at naval base on the outskirts of Lima, the capital, where he faces charges of “rebellion,” according to the prosecutor’s office. On Thursday, he appeared at an initial court hearing, in which a judge approved a request to keep the former president imprisoned for at least a week as the case against him is prepared.
Guillermo Olivera, an attorney who told local media he is representing Mr. Castillo, called the former president’s arrest “terribly arbitrary, illegal and criminal.”
In an interview, the U.S. ambassador to Peru, Lisa Kenna, commended the institutional response to Mr. Castillo’s attempt to dissolve Congress, calling it a “win for democracy in Peru.”
