No countries for old men

22 March 2018 By Martin Langfield

Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, a 79-year-old ex-banker, has resigned as Peru’s president amid graft allegations. His junior by two years, Brazil’s Michel Temer, has failed to deliver key pension reforms to spur the region’s biggest economy. Latin populism needs more vigorous enemies.

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Peru's President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski announced his resignation on March 21 in the face of near-certain impeachment over corruption allegations. Kuczynski, 79, denies wrongdoing and has promised to cooperate with a graft probe into his connections to Odebrecht, a Brazilian construction company at the center of that country’s Car Wash corruption scandal that has acknowledged bribing officials across Latin America.

The former Wall Street banker narrowly won the country’s presidential election in June 2016 but has struggled to govern effectively in the face of a Congress controlled by his defeated rival Keiko Fujimori's Popular Force party. Vice President Martin Vizcarra is expected to be sworn in to replace him on March 23.

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