Gen Z in Peru protests against President Boluarte for corruption and pensions
Peru’s young people are getting ready for more protests against President Dina Boluarte on Saturday. This comes a week after protests in the capital led to fights with police that hurt over a dozen police officers, protesters, and reporters.
Protests started on September 20 because of changes to Peru’s pension system that made all adults over 18 sign up with a pension provider. However, people had been angry at Boluarte and Congress for a long time, which made the protests even worse.
“Peru has had a low level of simmering discontent for a long time,” said Jo-Marie Burt, a visiting professor at Princeton University’s Latin American studies program who has studied Peruvian politics for many years.
Burt said that the anger was caused by corruption scandals, lack of economic security, rising crime, and the belief that no one was responsible for the deaths of dozens of protesters by security forces when Boluarte took over in late 2022, after former President Pedro Castillo was removed from office and arrested.
The July report from the Institute of Peruvian Studies says that 2.5% of people like Boluarte and 3% like Congress.
Along with the unrest in Lima, protests have also shook the mining business in the country. Hudbay Minerals (HBM.TO), opens new tab, said on Tuesday that its mill in Peru had to be briefly shut down because of the ongoingunrest. It makes a lot of gold and silver and is the third-largest copper supplier in the world.
Latin American youth take to the streets
After youth protests in Indonesia and Nepal, Gen Z in Peru is now taking to the streets. Demonstrations have often included a skull in a straw hat, which is a character from the Japanese manga “One Piece” who is a pirate who looks for wealth.
Leonardo Munoz is one of the protesters in Lima who is holding up the sign.
“The main character, Luffy, travels from town to town freeing people from tyrannical, corrupt rulers in towns of slaves,” he said. “It shows what’s going on in different countries.” That’s what’s going on in Peru right now.
The INE, Peru’s statistics office, says that 27% of the country’s people are between the ages of 18 and 29.
“We’re sick of this becoming the norm.” A student protester named Santiago Zapata asked, “Since when have we normalized death, since when have we normalized corruption, since when have we normalized extortion?”
“My generation is coming out to protest now because we’re tired of being silenced, made to feel afraid when the government we elected should fear us.”
Backsliding on democracy in Peru and around the world
Burt says the protests are part of a larger trend that puts pressure on democracies around the world. They also happen at the same time that the administration is trying to weaken judges, watchdogs, and prosecutors.
“It makes me think of what happened in the 1990s under Fujimori, when the justice system was essentially taken over to strengthen dictatorship,” she said.
While the US doesn’t put as much pressure on other countries to protect democracy, Burt said that people are still worried about the administration weakening electoral institutions before the 2026 elections. He also said that protests in Peru in the past helped “hold the line from institutions being taken over” and even overthrew presidents.
Burt said, “Democratic forces can organize and act in unexpected ways that can have a positive result, even when these authoritarian systems are in almost total control.” He also said that the protests’ ability to last will be very important. “The opera is still going on.”
