On the verge of beginning a pre-electoral year, regional indicators show us that the Peruvian population is so hopeless about its political class that He believes less and less in democracy.
According to the latest edition of the Latinobarómetro, Peru leads the ranking of nations whose population has increased its indifference the most in relation to whether they have a democratic or non-democratic regime that governs them.
The preference for democracy is also reduced and citizen satisfaction with this administration system only reaches 10%. Why do we have these indicators? The corruption could be the answer.
THE CAUSES AND THE EFFECTS
Jorge Medina Mendezpresident of Conscious Capitalism, maintained that the fall in the preference for democracy “is an alarming indication”, since it “reflects the growing citizen disillusionment with institutions that fail to satisfy expectations of representation and justice.”
“Looking ahead to the 2026 elections, it is imperative that authorities and civil society work together to reverse this trend,” he told Peru21.
Medina commented that the Latinobarómetro also shows that “90% of Peruvians believe that the country is governed to benefit a few powerful groups.” That perception, he added, “is devastating” because “it worsens the disconnection between the State and the population.”
For his part, the president of Transparency, Alvaro Henzlermentioned that in Peru “a very high percentage of leaders, current congressmen, governors and mayors are investigated for corruption.”
Peru’s decline in the preference for democracy is “dramatic,” he maintained, and “is the main and direct responsibility of the current rulers, especially President Boluarte and a majority of Congress that has legislated in favor of crime, insecurity, populism, and authoritarianism.”
“This leaves us in a risky position for 2026. With 50 candidates and a weakened economy and democracy, the possibility of two populist radicals going to the second round with 8% or 10% is greater. Even without winning the presidency, they can take control of the Senate and finish destroying institutions and democracy,” he concluded.
Meanwhile, the political scientist Yesenia Alvarez He told this newspaper that “citizens feel corruption at different times in their daily lives when they interact with State service points and also in the absence of it.”
In that sense, he explained that “due to corruption, citizens cannot access basic services such as hospitals, security or justice, for example. A corrupt country is an insecure country, without peace, unjust and impoverishing.”
“For some time now this report and other similar ones have spoken of a trend of democratic decline in the region due to the lack of public support for democracy and that trend for this year 2024 has been reversed, but not for Peru, which would continue in democratic regression,” lament.
Álvarez said that “the decline in the appreciation of democracy for Peruvians is dangerous for the democratic future of the country,” because this “is breeding ground for populist candidates to appear with these authoritarian messages in which they promise to resolve ‘what the ‘Democracy does not solve’. We are warned.
Technical sheet: Latinobarómetro was applied between August 23 and October 9, 2024 and carried out 19,214 face-to-face interviews with representative national samples of the population of each country, of all inhabitants aged 18 years and over who live in the 17 countries. The margin of error of the national samples is 3.0% and the margin of error of the total sample of the region is 1.0%. Confidence level of 95%.
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