Peruvian democracy weakened as government consolidates control: Report | Politics News [Video]

Peruvian democracy has continued to deteriorate more than a year after the removal of former President Pedro Castillo, according to a recent report from the Washington-based nonprofit Freedom House.

The report — released this month — traced the lingering effects of a government crackdown on protesters, as well as efforts to interfere with judicial independence and other oversight bodies.

The result was that Peru slumped from a rating of “free” in 2022 to “partly free” in 2023 and 2024, as Freedom House noted declining democratic protections for the freedom of assembly and eroding safeguards against corruption.

“All these regulatory bodies and independent branches of government used to have the possibility of opposing decisions by Congress, and now that possibility is really attenuated,” said Will Freeman, the author of the report and a fellow for Latin America Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

He added that Peru saw the fourth-largest drop in its Freedom House score of any country in the world.

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