History History

The first inhabitants arrived on Peruvian soil at the end of the Wisconsian glaciation (11th^century BC) as hunter-gatherers in the lithic era. The rock paintings of Toquepala (near Moquegua) and Lauricocha (Huanuco region) are reminiscent of those painted at the same time at Lascaux and Altamira.

Their descendants developed horticulture: sowing and harvesting. Then cotton grew and people braved the ocean on frail reed boats(totora) to fish. Finally, this great leap into modernity culminated in the breeding of camelids, whose flesh was consumed and whose wool was woven.

Witness to the oldest civilization in America, the Caral archaeological site is Peru's equivalent of the Egyptian pyramids, and has been a Unesco World Heritage site since 2009. This civilization, which lived from agriculture and fishing, left its mark with six pyramids in the middle of an arid, almost white desert. The most imposing rises to 18 metres. This founding civilization allowed the social and cultural complexity of the region's peoples to evolve, ultimately giving rise to Peru.

Chavín is a highly advanced, hierarchical society that stretches along the northern coast and as far as Lake Titicaca. Its mastery of water enabled spectacular development, which was enjoyed by a politico-religious caste at the top of the social pyramid. Of this culture, the grandiose temple of Chavín de Huántar, located in the department of Ancash, remains, with its terraces, staircases, sculptures and stone masks representing fantastic beings. Listed as a Unesco World Heritage Site since 1985. The Chavín influence can also be seen on the north coast, near Casma, in the beautiful Sechín temple, whose walls are engraved with enigmatic scenes of carnage.

This civilization is distinguished by its textile pieces, now on display in the museums ofIca or in the well-documented Amano Museum in Lima Miraflores. These cotton fabrics with wool thread applications mainly depict fantastical beings, as well as stylized animals and men, in a breathtaking harmony of tones. Even then, people were burying their dead, mummified in cotton bundles, in necropolises in the coastal desert. Trepanning was also practiced. The deformation of the brain (flat, oblique or straight) testifies to perfect mastery of the operation, no doubt refined over the centuries.

Although confined to the coast, 400 km south of Lima, this culture influenced other peoples as far away as the Ayacucho sierra. Their great knowledge of hydrography enabled the engineers of the time to build a network of underground stone canals in the desert, still in use today, and to develop the intensive cultivation of corn and cotton. The Cantalloc aqueducts , which run deep into the dry desert soil of Nazca, bear witness to this.

The chromatic richness of Nazca ceramics is matched by that of Paracas fabrics. The huacos (pottery) depict fantastic beings from mythology (hundred-legged monsters, two-headed snakes, trophy heads...) all over their surface, making them easily identifiable.

It is the mystery of the Nazca Lines that has made this visionary culture so famous. The lines traced in the San José pampas constitute one of the major enigmas of our time. They were discovered in 1939 by an American academic, Paul Kosok.
They take the form of a dense network of zoomorphic (spider, monkey, lizard, hummingbird, dog, whale...) and geometric (spirals, triangles, parallels) figures, whose size (from 15 to 300 m in length for the figures, 10 km for some lines) makes them visible only from the air.

According to analyses of ceramics found on the plateau, this gigantic work was created between 300 BC and 800 AD. Maria Reiche has devoted her life to deciphering their symbols and meanings.

Born in the valley of the Moche river, near Trujillo, it extends then until Piura in the north and Lima in the south. The Moché or Mochica culture is one of the most remarkable of ancient Peru in terms of architecture, ceramics and goldsmithing. The precision of the scenes, whether engraved on the walls or reproduced on the ceramics, is breathtaking and plunges us into a universe populated by magical beings, exploits, submission and sacrifices that literally take place before our eyes

The most beautiful example of its architectural know-how is given to us by the Huacas del Sol and de la Luna, in the surroundings of Trujillo, of pyramidal form and built entirely out of adobe. The famous erotic huacos, exposed in the Larco Herrera museum of Lima, are of mochica origin, as is the Señor de Sipán, discovered in 1987 and which represents one of the most important finds of ancient Peru. In his tomb a work of extraordinary finesse as for the metals and precious stones. They are exposed with a very beautiful setting in light and in perspective in the Museo Tumbas Reales located in Lambayeque. The museums of the north are among the most modern of the country and we regret that they are still so few.

Ayacucho was the crucible of the Tiwanaku-Wari Empire, the most powerful between 900 and 1200, before the advent of the Incas. It reigned over the entire Andean south and the southern coast. Paracas and Nazca, for example, were subjugated by the Tiwanaku-wari empire. As their conquests progressed, the Huaris built cities characterized by monumental architecture in rough stone, surrounded by high walls, as witnessed by the Wari ruins a few kilometers from Ayacucho.

Wari art, based on that of Tiahuanaco (which originated around Lake Titicaca and influenced other cultures as far afield as Bolivia and northern Argentina and Chile), owes its fame to stone sculptures depicting anthropomorphic divinities. The most typical ceramic is "kero", a ritual glass that was taken over by the Incas and has survived to the present day. We also owe them the first network of roads, later extended to become the Inca Qhapaq Ñan.

They are thought to be the descendants of migrants from the Cordillera who gradually adapted to this Amazonian environment of cloudy, mountainous jungle. They radically altered the landscape to build their crops, using the scorched-earth technique that continues to this day. They reigned over some 400 ^km2 from the Marañon river to the Abiseo river , where they built the Gran Pajaten citadel, still covered in jungle and inaccessible today. Another of their architectural masterpieces is the Kuélap citadel, a village of round stone huts built together and overlooking the valley. We also owe them impressive funerary sites such as the sarcophagi of Karajia or the 219 mummies of the Laguna de los Condores, unearthed in April 1997 and exhibited in the beautiful Leymebamba museum. Numerous cliffs and caves in the Utcubamba valley are marked by the leap of their cave paintings. These proud warrior conquerors of a geography of the impossible finally gave in to the conquests of Túpac Inca Yupanqui.

Heir to the Mochica culture, the Chimú empire, at its apogee, stretched from Tumbes to the north of Lima, along some 1,000 km of coastline. Until its conquest by the Incas, the empire enjoyed harmonious development, thanks in particular to irrigation provided by a system of canals that drew water from the Andes. Chan Chán, the capital, is the largest earthen city in the world. Itsadobe walls are decorated with friezes and bas-reliefs featuring an infinite number of geometric figures and animals such as fish. It is estimated that most of the treasures looted by the Spanish conquerors were of Chimú origin.

The Chimú empire's little sister, the Lambayeque or Sican culture, is also a descendant of the Mochicas. The goldsmithing of this people was so rich that it influenced the whole of ancient Peru; almost all the gold objects on display in museums come from the region occupied by the Chimú and Lambayeque. To the latter we owe the characteristic sacrificial knife, the tumi, with its half-moon-shaped blade in gold or copper, whose hilt features the figure of Naylamp, a masked demigod with two small wings on his back. Located 35 km north of Chiclayo, the Tucume site, also known as the Valley of the Pyramids (there are 26), combines the successive influences of the Lambayeque (1000 AD), Chimú (1365 AD) and Inca (1471 AD) cultures

Manco Cápac, the first Inca ruler, born - according to legend - on the shores of Lake Titicaca, founded Cusco as the capital of his territory. The next two monarchs, Sinchi Roca and Lloque Yupanqui, subdued small independent kingdoms.

Inca territory strengthened its position throughout the Cusco valley with four semi-legendary rulers. Mayta Cápac was a great warrior. He subdued the Kollas and introduced the quipu system. Cápac Yupanqui subdued the bold Omasuyus (north of La Paz, Bolivia) and defeated the formidable Macha armies, who would later become the empire's most feared soldiers. Inca Roca created schools for the nobility and had the Quechua language adopted as the empire's official language. Yahuar Huacac soon disappeared.

Master of the Cuzco valley, he began a period of expansion in the Andes. His conquest reached as far as present-day Tucumán (Argentina). He also built the Nustas palace and a 600 km-long canal at Huancavelica (Peru). In 1438, however, he suffered a bitter defeat at the hands of one of his peoples, the Chancas.

Inca expansion began with the reign of Pachacútec (or Pacha Kutiy Inqa Yupanki in Quechua, "he who transforms the world"), who subdued neighboring peoples after defeating the formidable Chancas of Ayacucho. Following this victory, the Incas embarked on a series of dazzling conquests that extended their empire as far north as Colombia and as far south as half of present-day Chile and Argentina. Erecting an empire called Tahuantinsuyu, they reorganized the administration of conquered cities. His reign saw the construction of temples and palaces in Cusco, as well as the city of Machu Picchu.

Tupac Yupanqui, son of Pachacutec, extended the empire as far as present-day Ecuador and penetrated as far as the Río Maure in present-day Chile. He built the imposing fortress of Saqsayhuaman to protect Cusco from invasion. A daring soldier and great builder, he reigned for almost half a century.

Under Huayna Cápac, the empire was at the height of its territorial expansion: 900,000 ^km2 stretching from the Ancasmayo river in Colombia to the Atacama desert in Chile. He devoted 17 years to the total conquest of Ecuador. He conquered Quito and married the daughter of the defeated ruler, Cachas. From their union Atau Wallpa (better known as Atahualpa) was born. Huayna Cápac is warned of the presence of the Spanish on the northern coasts, while at the same time epidemics and earthquakes strike the kingdom: the threat is growing.

The emperor died of smallpox, a viral disease introduced to the territory by the Europeans. His death triggered a war of succession between his two sons, Atahualpa and Huáscar. Huáscar was supported by the nobility of Cusco, from which he descended on his mother's side, while Atahualpa had the backing of the nobility of Quito (the present-day capital of Ecuador, from which his mother also descended). Meanwhile, Pizarro returned to Spain to ask Charles V to finance a new expedition to the Incas.

In 1532, the Spaniards landed in Tumbes. Attracted by gold and silver, Pizarro and Almagro headed for Cajamarca via the Qhapaq Ñan (Inca Trail of the Sierra). They were accompanied by 168 men, 37 horses and 4 cannons. At this point, Atahualpa had just subdued Huáscar's troops at Huanacopampa, the latter having been taken prisoner. The Spaniards took advantage of the civil war within the empire to form an alliance with four kingdoms (huanca, chanca, canari and chachapoya).

Pizarro set up his cannons all around the hills of Cajamarca. Atahualpa, son of the Sun, with a large army, is not wary. When the Inca is carefully trapped, Pizarro emits a signal that seals the fate of the world forever. The confusion and surprise are total, the Incas offer little resistance and Atahualpa is taken prisoner. Tahuantinsuyo died on November 16, 1532.

Although Pizarro had promised him his life in exchange for a lot of gold, the Inca was tried, condemned and strangled. Atahualpa had already taken it upon himself to execute his brother Huascar from captivity. The "cuarto del rescate", in which the Inca twice collected silver and once gold up to the height of his raised arm, was not enough to save him. The total loot reached 1,326,439 gold pesos, shared between 171 conquistadores (Father Valverde, 65 horsemen and 105 infantrymen).

Pizarro, Soto and Almagro enter legendary Cusco without resistance. A young nobleman from the city is placed at the head of the empire, Manco Inca.

Pizarro founded the Ciudad de los Reyes, the City of Kings, which later became the city of Lima.

In 1538, Pizarro had Almagro executed for claiming the title of governor of Cusco. Almagro's son murdered Pizarro at his home in Lima on June 26, 1541. Now master of Cusco, Pizarro was defeated a year later by the army of Cristóbal Vaca de Castro, a former ally of Pizarro.

To put an end to the internal quarrels between conquistadors, Spain imposed its law by creating Peru. The colony stretched from the Isthmus of Panamá to Patagonia.

The new viceroy of Peru, Francisco de Toledo, introduced the mita, forced labor for all Indians aged between 15 and 50. The system lasted until it was finally abolished in Cadiz in 1812. The natives, evangelized by force, were deprived of their beliefs and customs. Diseases, brought by the conquistadores and hitherto unknown, decimated entire populations. Abundant in minerals and precious metals, the Inca empire was transformed into a field of intensive extraction of natural wealth. Gold and silver mines worked at full capacity, sending galleons full of ingots and looted treasures to the metropolis. Potosí, now in Bolivia, supplied the silver, Huancavelica the mercury.

Túpac Amaru, one of the sons of Manco Cápac II, took up his late father's fight against the Spaniards at Vilcabamba. Captured by Francisco de Toledo, he was executed in Cusco's main square.

From the ^17th century onwards, new social actors appeared: mestizos, born of mixed marriages or rape, and blacks who had come from Africa as slaves. The latter built the cities of the coast, Lima in particular, and it is in these regions that their descendants live today. The latifundos, large rural estates, operated according to a semi-feudal slave system. In 1777, King Charles III of Spain raised taxes and customs duties. Indians, mestizos and blacks were barred from civil service positions. These measures met with strong opposition. The native population, decimated, fell from around 6 million in 1500 to 1.5 million sixty years later and some 700,000 at the dawn of the ^19th century.

The last great Inca revolt broke out in November 1780 as a result of colonial injustice and cruelty. Túpac Amaru II claimed to be the direct descendant of Túpac Amaru, the last Inca emperor of Vilcabamba. He launched a "Great Rebellion" against the Spanish occupiers, demanding, among other things, an end to the exploitation of the Indians and the abolition of black slavery. On May 18, 1781, Túpac Amaru II, his family and supporters were tortured and beheaded in Cusco's Plaza de Armas.

Proclamation of Peru's independence. At the beginning of the 19th century, the whole of Latin America rose up against Spain, and the countries became independent. This time, the rebellion was led by the Creoles, not just the natives. In Peru, the stronghold on the continent of the Spanish sovereigns, freedom was wrested by patriotic armies commanded in the south by General San Martín, promoter of Argentine independence, and in the north by the troops of Simón Bolívar, father of the emancipation of Gran Colombia (Venezuela, Panama, Ecuador and present-day Colombia). Proclaimed on July 28, 1821, Peru's independence became effective after the victory of Ayacucho in 1824.

The Spanish royalist army capitulates after its defeat at Ayacucho by Venezuelan general Simón Bolívar. This marked the end of the viceroyalty of Peru and the beginning of South American independence.

The commercial exploitation of saltpetre and above all guano enabled a handful of landowners to grow rich, and the country to build up its infrastructure. A commercial and banking system was established, under British influence. It was also during this period that Marshal Castilla put an end to slavery on December 3, 1854. 100,000 Chinese emigrated to the New World between 1850 and 1875, providing a new workforce. The economic expansion that marked the beginning of the ^20th century came at a price: an unequal society that rejected mestizos and indigenous peoples. All power was centralized in Lima, giving rise to a rivalry that continues to this day between people from the Cordillera and the coast, and between whites, mestizos and natives. Augusto Leguía was President from 1919 to 1930, and his name is often associated with Peru's entry into modernity.

Pacific War: although allied with Bolivia, Peru is defeated by Chile.

The dictatorships of Manuel Odria (1948-1956), Fernando Belaúnde Terry (1963-1969), Generals Velasco Alvarado (1968-1975) and Francisco Morales Bermúdez (1975-1980) followed.

Ideas of state planning and social welfare, as practiced in Eastern Europe, inspired the movement of generals led by General Velasco Alvarado, who deposed President Belaúnde Terry in 1968. Velasco Alvarado's government, described as "revolutionary", sought to break away from communist and capitalist models. It immediately set about nationalizing oil, then strategic economic sectors such as steel and mining, and implemented agrarian reform, expropriating large latifundios to set up cooperatives. Non-aligned and close to the USSR, Velasco's Peru faced hostility from the United States. General Francisco Morales Bermúdez took over. Urbanization accelerated, coupled with the phenomenon of "marginalization" of new migrants in shantytowns or pueblos jóvenes, which still exist today.

On May 17 1980 in Chuschi, in the Ayacucho region, a small group burned the electoral lists and ballot boxes. The Shining Path had just entered the political arena. The elections bring Fernando Belaúnde Terry to power for the second time. The economic crisis deepens, along with the violence caused by Shining Path terrorism.

Alan García Pérez, aged 35, became President of the country with 53% of the vote: the APRA (American Popular Revolutionary Alliance) realized a sixty-year-old dream. Great hopes were awakened... until the crisis hit again. Inflation began to gallop again, and public finances began to accumulate deficits. In 1988, inflation was 1,789%, rising to 2,777% the following year. The Shining Path began to strike outside its Andean strongholds, and Lima experienced the anguish of terrorist attacks. The scale of a conflict that had hitherto terrorized the inland population, cornered between guerrilla warfare and armed repression, was finally appreciated.

With the support of the military, Alberto Fujimori launched a civilian coup d'état in April 1992, dissolving Congress and granting himself full powers to "fight terrorism". In 1993, Peru adopted a new constitution and returned to the international stage.

Supported by the country's poorest citizens, Alberto Fujimori defeated Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, former UN Secretary General, in the 1995 elections.

In September 2000, the "Montesinos affair" erupted, an incredible saga of video cassettes recorded while high dignitaries were receiving bribes to favor certain companies. Fujimori resigned by fax from Japan and hastened to regain Japanese nationality, thus becoming untouchable by the Peruvian justice system. He was succeeded by Valentin Paniagua on an interim basis.

Election of the first indigenous president, Alejandro Toledo. He is particularly known for his "peaceful resistance" against the Fujimori government's third term in office. On July 28, 2000, he led a nationwide protest called La Marcha de los Cuatro Suyos. Although he pursued a solid economic policy and opened Peru up to free trade, rumors of corruption and a chaotic personal life ended his term in office with a popularity rating of 8%. His Belgian wife, Eliane Karp, has always supported him and even earned him the nickname "cholo sano y sagrado". Since February 2017, he has been the subject of an international arrest warrant, extradited to Peru in 2023 and finally sentenced in October 2024, at the age of 78, to 20 years and 6 months in prison for paying bribes to the Odebrecht company.

After 5 years in exile, Alberto Fujimori is arrested in Chile. On April 7, 2009, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison by the Lima Court for: human rights violations (during his presidency), embezzlement in the Montesinos affair (7 years), as well as corruption (of opposition deputies and journalists) and illegal wiretapping (of opponents and other political figures, 6 years).

Alan García wins the presidential election. Despite the serious economic crisis into which he had plunged the country during his first term of office between 1985 and 1990, he was re-elected and pursued a more pragmatic policy.

Socialist President Ollanta Humala wins the 2nd round of the presidential election against Keiko Fujimori (daughter of the deposed dictator). In 2013, 2 years ahead of schedule, Peru achieved the goals set by the United Nations for reducing the country's infant mortality rate and poverty line. Social measures such as Pension 65 (minimum old-age pension), increases in the minimum wage and scholarship programs (Beca 18) were introduced. Unfortunately, corruption marred the end of his mandate. Ollanta Humala and his wife, Nadine Heredia, spent several months in preventive detention as part of the Odebrecht scandal. Their trial is still pending. Despite this, Humala is running for re-election in 2021.

Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, a shrewd politician and former Wall Street banker, won the presidential election by a hair's breadth, but soon found himself blocked by a Congress with a large Fujimorist majority. In the 1st round of the presidential election, Keiko Fujimori came out well ahead with 39.7% of the vote. Verónika Mendoza, who represents the Frente Amplio, a sort of left-wing front, came in 3rd. With a French mother and Peruvian father, this convinced Cusquenian is shaking up a stagnant political landscape, but will not be able to confirm her position in 2021.

The scandal that led to ex-president Lula being sentenced to nine and a half years in prison in Brazil has cast a shadow over the entire political class. Odebrecht is a Brazilian construction company that paid bribes in exchange for public contracts in many Latin American countries. Toledo, the Humala couple, Alan Garcia and soon PPK himself were implicated. Before the fall of Keiko Fujimori.

President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski pardons Alberto Fujimori in an attempt to save his presidency. On February 20, 2018, the former dictator is sent back to court on charges related to the murder of six villagers in 1992. On October 3, 2018, Judge Hugo Nuñez revoked the pardon granted to him in 2017 and ordered his immediate arrest. He was subsequently hospitalized. On January 24, 2019, he is re-incarcerated under special conditions linked to his fragile health. On December 6, 2023, Peru's Constitutional Court allows his release to reside at the home of his daughter, Keiko. At the same time, Congress approves a law prescribing crimes of lèse-humanité committed before 2022.

PPK renounces the presidency following pressure from the Fujimorist-majority Congress. He has been in preventive prison since April 19, 2019, under house arrest due to his frail health.

Vice-president Martin Vizcarra took over the reins of power and went to war head-on with Congress in an attempt to impose far-reaching reforms. Vizcarra, less well known on the political scene, tried to claim to be the voice of the people, tired of corruption. The Covid crisis initially served his communication purposes.

Two-time ex-president Alan García, indicted in the Odebrecht scandal, shoots himself in the head on the first floor of his home just as teams from the Public Prosecutor's Office come to arrest him. His party, APRA, offered him a martyr's funeral. At 69, García bowed out with panache: "I leave my children the dignity of my decisions, my companions a signal of pride, and my adversaries my corpse as a mark of contempt...".

President Martín Vizcarra dissolves the Congress of the Republic for the de facto denial of a question of confidence.

Extraordinary parliamentary elections lead to the formation of a new congress to complete the legislature until July 26, 2021. The results were bitter. Fuerza Popular (Fujimorist party) lost its leading position, but FREPAP (radical evangelist movement) emerged with 15 elected members.

^1st case of Covid detected in Peru, on March 16, borders closed. A state of emergency is declared, coupled with a strict lockdown lasting 107 days until July 1, 2020. Schools were closed and education was offered in virtual form. It did not resume until the start of the new school year in March 2022, depriving many children of two full years of normal schooling and widening the inequality gap. Despite all this, on August 27, 2020, the WHO announced that Peru was the country with the highest per capita mortality in the world due to Covid-19. A weak healthcare system, economic insecurity and inescapable promiscuity all combine to explain the more than 200,000 deaths in the four corners of the country.

Congress declared President Martín Vizcarra's term of office vacant for permanent moral incapacity. Suspected of corruption while serving as regional governor of Moquegua, he is the fourth president to leave office since the beginning of the Republic.

The impeachment of Vizcarra by an equally corrupt Congress provoked huge demonstrations in Lima and other major cities. On November 10, Manuel Merino was sworn in as President of the Republic, and the demonstrations left 112 people injured and two dead, two students, Inti and Brian. On November 15, Merino resigned.

Francisco Sagasti entered the scene with an image of reconciliation and probity. His government signed the agreements for the vaccine's arrival on the national territory, generating a breath of fresh hope as it was revealed that 487 high-ranking civil servants (including ex-president Vizcarra) had been secretly vaccinated. Sagasti is keeping his promise to carry out the presidential elections on April 11, 2021, even if many would have liked him to remain in the face of a bleak scenario.

A trial opens concerning the policy of forced sterilization practiced in the 1990s under the Fujimori governments. None of those responsible for these practices has yet been convicted. It is estimated that 270,000 indigenous people were affected.

Pedro Pablo Castillo, a schoolteacher and trade unionist from Cajamarca, wins the presidential election by a landslide. With 18 candidates, the 1st round produced a final result that no one had seen coming: a Pedro Castillo/Keiko Fujimori face-off that reopened all wounds. Keiko Fujimori spent 16 months in pre-trial detention for corruption, but was able to get out to run her campaign. Castillo won the countryside and the popular vote, vote after vote. Associated with the Marxist-Leninist party Peru Libre, his victory caused concern in privileged circles and a rise in the dollar. With 37 representatives in Congress (out of 130), his majority is fragile and subject to alliances. In November 2021, a first motion of vacancy was debated in Congress for corruption, influence peddling and illegal use of funds to finance his campaign in the Junin region. The tug-of-war between the presidential and legislative branches lasted a year, discrediting the political class with each passing day.

On December 7, 2022, Pedro Castillo announced the dissolution of parliament against constitutional rules. Quickly abandoned by his ministers and the forces of order, he was finally deposed and arrested 3 hours later, and had to face justice. His vice-president, Dina Boluarte, took the reins of power with a speech of reconciliation. She is the first female president in Peruvian political history. In the last thirty years, only two (interim) heads of state have not been troubled by the law...

Dina Boluarte has managed to hold on to power despite her highly contested personality. Her entry into the presidency was accompanied by a strong protest movement, most marked in the southern Andes from December 2022 to February 2023. Repression by the military led to 50 deaths, 20 of which were directly attributed to the security forces, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). Protected by her position and the Constitution until July 2026, she nevertheless had to appear as a witness in the trial opened for "genocide, qualified homicide and grievous bodily harm".

She also had to face accusations of bribery in what became known as the Rolex affair, after an online investigative media outlet, La Encerrona, demonstrated that she had been seen with 15 high-end model watches on her wrist since taking office in 2021 as Minister of Development and Inclusion. She pleads systematic media harassment.

She has been able to count on the total ineffectiveness of a divided and corrupt Congress that multiplies scandals and contributes to alienating citizens from their political representatives with a resigned "Asi, es el Peru!" (That's Peru!). Rumors of impeachment are frequent, but have yet to be carried out.

While just a few months before, he and his daughter appeared to be potential future candidates for the 2026 presidential race, Fujimori finally passed away on the night of September 11, 2024 at his daughter's home where he was residing, aged 86. He had been battling tongue cancer for several years. The presidency declared three days of official mourning but, no doubt weary of the controversies, the country moved on fairly quickly from the man who was undoubtedly its greatest recent political figure.

All this augurs a very pessimistic panorama for the 2026 elections, where Keiko Fujimori (daughter of the ex-president, also suspected in various corruption cases), Rafael Lopez Aliaga (conservative, current mayor of Lima), Antauro Humala (brother of Ollanta Humala, ex-military and advocate of shock formulas) could find themselves in the running... In the more moderate, progressive camp, we find Véronika Mendoza, a Franco-Peruvian who achieved a respectable score in 2016 (^3rd with 18.74% of the vote), but remains associated with the far left for many. Another possibility is Hernando de Soto, an economist who is well known on the political scene, but who will be 86 at the time. The date for the first round of voting is set for April 12, 2026, and the traditional date for taking power is July 28.