‘Essential ingredient’ for halting corruption in Peru? Common good.
For Raúl Ibañez, Peru’s political crisis and the sometimes-violent unrest shaking the country in recent months are rooted in what he calls the “scourge of our country.”
“Corruption has been the downfall of our presidents for the past 30 years,” he says, including former President Pedro Castillo, who has sat in prison since early December following an attempt to dissolve Congress and rule by edict.
Mr. Castillo joins a dubious club of seven recent presidents who have either been imprisoned or investigated for graft. But corruption isn’t contained to Peru’s top leadership; for the past two decades it’s touched everything from the delivery of public services like health care and education, to members of Congress. Mr. Ibañez, a radiologist sitting in a shaded Lima Park with his wife and university-student son on a recent afternoon,
