Editing Politics of Peru (section)

==History==
The weakness of [[political parties]] in Peruvian politics has been recognized throughout the nation's history, with competing leaders fighting for power following the collapse of the [[Spanish Empire|Spanish Empire's]] [[Viceroyalty of Peru]].<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal|last1=Levitsky|first1=Steven|last2=Cameron|first2=Maxwell A.|date=Autumn 2003|title=Democracy without Parties? Political Parties and Regime Change in Fujimori's Peru|journal=[[Latin American Politics and Society]]|volume=45|issue=3|pages=1–33|doi=10.1111/j.1548-2456.2003.tb00248.x|s2cid=153626617}}</ref><ref name=":3">{{cite web|date=March 2005|title=Peru's Political Party System and the Promotion of the Pro-Poor Reform|url=https://www.ndi.org/sites/default/files/1853_pe_propoor_030105.pdf|website=[[National Democratic Institute]]}}</ref><ref name=":5" /> The [[Peruvian War of Independence]] saw [[aristocrats]] with land and wealthy [[merchants]] cooperate to fight the Spanish Empire, though the aristocrats would later obtain greater power and lead an [[oligarchy]] headed by ''[[caudillos]]'' that defended the existing [[feudalist]] [[Hacienda|''haciendas'']].<ref name=":5" /> During the time of the [[Chincha Islands War]], [[guano]] extraction in Peru led to the rise of an even wealthier aristocracy that established a [[plutocracy]].<ref name=":5" /> [[Anarchist]] politician [[Manuel González Prada]] accurately detailed that parties in Peru shortly after the [[War of the Pacific]] were controlled by a wealthy oligarchy that used candidate-based political parties to control economic interests; a practice that continues to the present day.<ref name=":5">{{Cite journal|last=Gorman|first=Stephen M.|date=September 1980|title=The Economic and Social Foundations of Elite Power in Peru: A Review of the Literature|journal=Social and Economic Studies|publisher=[[University of the West Indies]]|volume=29|issue=2/3|pages=292–319}}</ref> This oligarchy was supported by the [[Catholic Church]], which would ignore inequalities in Peru and instead assist governments with appeasing the impoverished majority.<ref name=":5" /> At this time, the [[Armed Forces of Peru|armed forces of Peru]] were seen by the public as ensuring territorial sovereignty and order, granting military leaders the ability to blame political parties and justify [[coup d'état]]s against established leaders of the nation who were facing socioeconomic difficulties.<ref name=":3" /> This led to a pattern throughout Peru's political history of an elected leader drafting and proposing a policy while the military would later overthrow the said leader, adopting and implementing the elected official's proposals.<ref name=":3" /> Combatting ideologies of ''[[indigenismo]]'' of the majority and the elite holding [[Europhile]] values would also arise at the end of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century.<ref name=":5" />

Following industrialization and [[World War I]], economic expansion in Peru resulted with rural groups demanding more interaction with the wealthy urban areas and embracing ''indigenismo''.<ref name=":5" /> Labor and student movements – especially the [[anarcho-syndicalist]] [[Peruvian Regional Workers' Federation]] – would arise at this time while nearly overtaking the existing oligarchical structure, though the coup and subsequent dictatorship of [[Augusto B. Leguía]] for the next decade would quash hopes for further progress.<ref name=":5" /> During the Leguía dictatorship emerged two political thinkers inspired by González Prada; [[José Carlos Mariátegui]] and [[Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre]].<ref name=":5" /> In 1924 from [[Mexico]], university reform leaders in Peru who had been forced into exile by the government founded the [[American People's Revolutionary Alliance]], which had a major influence on the country's political life. APRA is thus largely a political expression of the university reform and workers' struggles of the years 1918–1920. The movement draws its influences from the [[Mexican Revolution]] and its [[1917 Constitution]] – particularly on issues of [[agrarianism]] and [[indigenism]] – and to a lesser extent from the [[Russian Revolution]]. Its leader, [[Haya de la Torre]], declares that APRA as a "Marxist interpretation of the American reality", it nevertheless moves away from it on the question of class struggle and on the importance given to the struggle for the political unity of Latin America.<ref>Latin America in the 20th century: 1889-1929, 1991, p. 314-319</ref> In 1928, the Peruvian Socialist Party was founded, notably under the leadership of José Carlos Mariátegui, himself a spectator of the European socialist movements who maintained relationships with the [[Communist Party of Italy]], including the leadership of [[Palmiro Togliatti]] and [[Antonio Gramsci]]. Shortly afterwards in 1929, the party created the General Confederation of Workers. Following the assassination of President [[Luis Miguel Sánchez Cerro]] in 1933 by an Aprista, APRA was persecuted in Peru. Persecution of APRA persisted until about 1956 when it became allied with the elite in Peru.<ref name=":5" />

Following [[World War II]], the military's ideology began to distance itself from the wealthy elite when the Center of High Military Studies began to promote studies of Manuel González Prada and José Carlos Mariátegui, creating officers that viewed the elite as sacrificing national sovereignty in order to acquire foreign capital and resulted with an undeveloped, reliant nation.<ref name=":5" /> Thus in 1963, [[Fernando Belaúnde Terry]] was elected president and proposed the first pro-worker and peasant policies for Peru.<ref name=":3" /> Belaúnde's administration was tolerant of the political left, and a variety of Marxist parties expanded during his time in office.<ref name=":23233">{{Cite book |last=Scott Palmer |first=David |title=Mao's Little Red Book: A Global History |date=2013 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |isbn=978-1-107-05722-7 |editor-last=Cook |editor-first=Alexander C. |location=Cambridge |pages= |chapter=The Influence of Maoism in Peru}}</ref>{{Rp|pages=132-133}}

Belaúnde was overthrown by General [[Juan Velasco Alvarado]] in 1968, who implemented Belaúnde's policies in his own unique manner.<ref name=":3" /> The [[Shining Path]] guerilla group emerged in 1968 led by [[Abimael Guzmán]], beginning the [[internal conflict in Peru]] between the state and Shining Path forces. 

The 1979 [[Constitution of Peru|Constitution]] established universal suffrage in Peru and resulted in the return of democracy at the national level.<ref name=":23233" />{{Rp|page=133}}

During the [[Lost Decade (Peru)|Lost Decade]] of the 1980s and internal conflict, political parties became weaker once again.<ref name=":2" /><ref name=":3" /> Angered by President [[Alan García]]'s inability to combat the crises in the nation, the armed forces began planning a coup to establish a [[neoliberal]] government in the late 1980s with [[Plan Verde]].<ref name=":4">{{Cite journal|last=Burt|first=Jo-Marie|date=September–October 1998|title=Unsettled accounts: militarization and memory in postwar Peru|journal=[[NACLA|NACLA Report on the Americas]]|publisher=[[Taylor & Francis]]|volume=32|issue=2|pages=35–41|doi=10.1080/10714839.1998.11725657|quote=the military's growing frustration over the limitations placed upon its counterinsurgency operations by democratic institutions, coupled with the growing inability of civilian politicians to deal with the spiraling economic crisis and the expansion of the Shining Path, prompted a group of military officers to devise a coup plan in the late 1980s. The plan called for the dissolution of Peru's civilian government, military control over the state, and total elimination of armed opposition groups. The plan, developed in a series of documents known as the "Plan Verde," outlined a strategy for carrying out a military coup in which the armed forces would govern for 15 to 20 years and radically restructure state-society relations along neoliberal lines.}}</ref><ref name="Alfredo">{{cite book|author=Alfredo Schulte-Bockholt|title=The politics of organized crime and the organized crime of politics: a study in criminal power|publisher=Lexington Books|year=2006|isbn=978-0-7391-1358-5|pages=114–118|chapter=Chapter 5: Elites, Cocaine, and Power in Colombia and Peru|quote=important members of the officer corps, particularly within the army, had been contemplating a military coup and the establishment of an authoritarian regime, or a so-called directed democracy. The project was known as 'Plan Verde', the Green Plan. ... Fujimori essentially adopted the 'Plan Verde,' and the military became a partner in the regime. ... The autogolpe, or self-coup, of April 5, 1992, dissolved the Congress and the country's constitution and allowed for the implementation of the most important components of the 'Plan Verde.'}}</ref> Peruvians shifted their support for [[authoritarian]] leader [[Alberto Fujimori]], who was supported by the military following his win in the [[1990 Peruvian general election]].<ref name=":2" /><ref name=":3" />

Fujimori essentially adopted the policies outlined in the military's Plan Verde and turned Peru into a neoliberal nation.<ref name="Alfredo" /><ref name=":10">{{Cite journal|last=Avilés|first=William|date=Spring 2009|title=Despite Insurgency: Reducing Military Prerogatives in Colombia and Peru|journal=[[Latin American Politics and Society]]|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|volume=51|issue=1|pages=57–85|doi=10.1111/j.1548-2456.2009.00040.x|s2cid=154153310}}</ref> Fujimori's civil-military government established sentiments in Peru that politics were slower than brute military force while governing.<ref name=":3" /> The 1979 Constitution was changed after the [[1992 Peruvian constitutional crisis|Fujimori's self-coup]] where the president dissolved the Congress and established the new 1993 Constitution. One of the changes to the 1979 Constitution was the possibility of the president's immediate re-election (Article 112) which made possible the re-election of Fujimori in the following years. After Fujimori's resignation, the transitional government of [[Valentín Paniagua]] changed Article 112 and called for [[2001 Peruvian general election|new elections in 2001]] where [[Alejandro Toledo]] was elected.

However, following the fall of the Fujimori government, Peru still lacked strong political parties, leaving the nation vulnerable to populist outsider politicians lacking experience.<ref name=":2" /> Regional parties then grew to become more popular as foreign investment increased during the 21st century, though their service to the elites sowed public distrust.<ref name=":3" /> On 28 July 2021, left-wing candidate [[Pedro Castillo]] was sworn in as the new [[President of Peru]] after a narrow win in a tightly contested run-off [[2021 Peruvian general election|election]].<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.dw.com/en/peru-pedro-castillo-sworn-in-as-president/a-58672989 |title=Peru: Pedro Castillo sworn in as president |work=Deutsche Welle |date=2021-07-28 |accessdate=2022-05-07}}</ref> On 7 December 2022, the congress removed President Castillo from office. He was replaced by Vice President [[Dina Boluarte]], the country's first female president.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Aquino |first1=Marco |title=New Peru president sworn in, predecessor Castillo arrested |url=https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/perus-president-says-will-dissolve-congress-calls-elections-2022-12-07/ |work=Reuters |date=8 December 2022 |language=en}}</ref>

=== Allegations of corruption in politics ===

Exceptionally many [[President of Peru|Presidents of Peru]] have been ousted from office or imprisoned on [[Corruption in Peru|allegations of corruption]] over the past three decades. [[Alberto Fujimori]] is serving a 25-year sentence in prison for commanding [[death squad]]s that killed civilians in a counterinsurgency campaign during his tenure (1990-2000). He was later also found guilty of corruption. Former president [[Alan García]] (1985-1990 and 2006–2011) committed suicide in April 2019 when Peruvian police arrived to arrest him over allegations he participated in [[Odebrecht Case|Odebrecht bribery]] scheme. Former president [[Alejandro Toledo]] is accused of allegedly receiving bribe from Brazilian construction firm [[Odebrecht]] during his government (2001-2006). Former president [[Ollanta Humala]] (2011-2016) is also under investigation for allegedly receiving bribe from Odebrecht during his presidential election campaign. Humala's successor [[Pedro Pablo Kuczynski]] (2016-2018) remains under house arrest while prosecutors investigate him for favoring contracts with Odebrecht. Former president [[Martín Vizcarra]] (2018-2020) was ousted by Congress after media reports alleged he had received bribes while he was a regional governor years earlier.<ref>{{cite news |title=The curious case of Peru's persistent president-to-prison politics |url=https://www.theweek.in/news/world/2020/11/17/the-curious-case-of-perus-persistent-president-to-prison-politics.html |work=The Week |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Peru's presidential lineup: graft probes, suicide and impeachment |url=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-peru-politics-presidents-factbox-idUSKBN27V0M1 |work=Reuters |date=15 November 2020 |language=en}}</ref>