By Fulton Armstrong

Martín Vizarra’s inauguration as President of Peru on March 23, 2018. / Twitter: @prensapalacio / Creative Commons

The resignation of Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (PPK) last weekend marks not only a deepening of the crisis of governance in that country; it also signals the greatest threat yet to the credibility of the Summit of the Americas process begun in 1994.

• The 2016 election of PPK, a technocrat with international experience, business acumen, and a stated commitment to attacking corruption, appeared at the time to reaffirm Peru’s preference for competent, if unglamorous, government. Allegations of inappropriate dealings with the Brazilian construction giant, Odebrecht, when he was a government minister in the 2000s and as a consultant prior to the last election – which he blamed on business partners – were his undoing.  He dodged charges, fought back, made deals (including releasing former President Fujimori from prison), and reportedly deployed his allies to buy votes to oppose his impeachment – all to no avail.  Vice President Martín Vizcarra, sworn in last Friday to succeed him, had been spirited off to Canada to be Peru’s ambassador last September when allegations of malfeasance as Transportation Minister led to calls for his impeachment.  But last week he pledged to make anticorruption and transparency top priorities.
• PPK is not the only tainted politician, or even the worst, in this drama. Two of his predecessors – Alejandro Toledo (2001-06) and Ollanta Humala (2011-16) – have been indicted for offenses involving Odebrecht.  The Congress that hounded PPK out of office is itself reportedly riddled with corruption.  Odebrecht officials have testified that PPK’s congressional nemesis, Keiko Fujimori, took $1.2 million from them in the 2011 presidential race.  The respected GFK poll indicates that, at 82 percent, Congress has a worse disapproval rating (by 1 percent) than PPK did last week – with the body’s corruption being a major factor.

The crisis comes just weeks before the eighth Summit of the Americas scheduled to be held in Lima on April 13‑14, with the overarching theme of “Democratic Governance against Corruption.”  Vizcarra has directed the Peruvian foreign ministry to proceed with preparations.  The event’s anticorruption focus could produce deeply embarrassing moments for a number of hemispheric heads of state in addition to the Peruvian hosts.  Odebrecht and the Lava Jato investigations loom large over Brazilian President Michel Temer (who, despite support in the single digits, last week announced his intention to run for reelection in October).  U.S. President Trump is engaged in warfare against the Department of Justice, FBI, and special prosecutor looking into allegations that he or his campaign colluded with Russians suspected of intervening in U.S. elections.  Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto has stumbled from scandal to scandal.  Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández remains under a cloud because of persistent questions about the vote count in his reelection in November.  Venezuelan President Maduro would be an obvious outcast – for both his corruption and poor governance – but his peers’ own baggage would force some restraint on their condemnations.

Other than newly inaugurated President Vizcarra’s anticorruption pledge, the conditions for a successful summit around the theme of corruption and democratic governance are obviously absent, and going ahead with it risks rendering the event a laughing stock.  Changing the theme would undermine its credibility and raise the troubling questions of what meaningful topics – trade, democracy, inequality, infrastructure investment, or counternarcotics – could replace it.  There are also tempting reasons to postpone the event, including the fact that several countries – Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia among them – will be electing new presidents this year and could bring fresh, validated ideas to a meeting next year or beyond.  Postponing the event, however, would risk braking what little momentum the Summit process has and would leave open when, if ever, the perfect summit could be held.  Crises driven by corruption (and, in the case of Venezuela, the collapse of decency) have a tendency to go on for years.  Either way, Summit organizers are going to have to scale back their expectations – with a protocolary event that sacrifices substance in April, or create a pretext for postponement and hope for a more propitious moment in the future.  The Ibero-American Summit, which includes Spain but excludes the United States and Canada, is scheduled to meet in Guatemala in November under the theme of “A Prosperous, Inclusive, and Sustainable Ibero-America.”  Perhaps that event’s timing and theme will help get regional discussions back on track.

March 26, 2018