Peru in peril

This appeared in the Washington Post:

The corruption scandal that has disrupted governance in Brazil for nearly four years has been slowly spreading across Latin America, thanks to the confessions of a construction company that paid hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes in more than a dozen countries. The vice president of Ecuador was sentenced to six years in prison last week for accepting payoffs from the Odebrecht construction company, and Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has been accused by a company official of taking campaign contributions in exchange for contracts.

Nowhere has the damage been greater, however, than in Peru, where two former presidents have been charged with crimes — and a third may be removed from office this week.

What makes the trouble worse is that President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, the target of an opposition-led impeachment vote scheduled for Thursday, has not been shown to be guilty of any wrongdoing, other than misleading the public.

That has been seized upon by the populist leader he defeated in the 2016 election, Keiko Fujimori, who is herself under investigation for receiving Odebrecht money.

Last week Fujimori launched an impeachment motion against Kuczynski on grounds of “permanent moral incapacity,” a charge that requires no tangible demonstration of wrongdoing, much less a trial.

Kuczynski has handled the Odebrecht affair poorly, but his removal would do only more damage to Peruvian democracy. But Fujimori, who has already orchestrated the removal of three cabinet ministers and is targeting several supreme court justices, appears intent on dismantling the government piece by piece.

That is not corruption fighting; it is abuse of power.