Peru’s Turmoil Doesn’t Have to Be Latin America’s Future
But the country's unrest is a stark warning of the threat to democracy in the region if politicians fail to address inequality and to deliver economic progress.
From left to right and back again, Latin America’s politicians aren’t delivering.
Photographer: Diego Ramos/AFP via Getty Images
You might forgive people puzzling over the political turmoil that has overtaken Peru. By standard economic metrics, the country was an undisputed regional success. Its economy grew by 4.5% a year, on average, in the decade before being walloped by the coronavirus. That is almost four times the average across South America.
Until the advent of the pandemic, poverty declined consistently and even inequality abated somewhat. Though the economy suffered a disastrous 2020, it rebounded sharply last year, growing by a whopping 13.6%.