First impeachment of Pedro Pablo Kuczynski

First impeachment process against Pedro Pablo Kuczynski

Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, along with his vice presidents, Martín Vizcarra and Mercedes Aráoz, speaks about the impeachment process against him.
Date	15–21 December 2017
Location	Peru
Participants	Pedro Pablo Kuczynski and Congress of Peru
Outcome	Failed

Peruvian political crisis
Causes
Fujimorism Corruption Odebrecht scandal
Events
Institutional acts Censure of Zavala cabinet 2019 constitutional crisis Impeachments Kuczynski's 1st Kuczynski's 2nd Vizcarra's 1st Vizcarra 2nd Castillo's 1st Castillo's 2nd Castillo's 3rd Scandals Cuellos Blancos Pardon of Alberto Fujimori Mamanivideos scandal COVID-19 pandemic Vacunagate 2021 electoral crisis 2022 self-coup attempt
Elections
2016 general election 2018 referendum 2020 parliamentary election 2021 general election 2026 general election
Protests
2017 teachers' strike 2018 agrarian strike Protests against Manuel Merino 2020–2021 agrarian strike 2021–2022 mining protests Protests against Pedro Castillo Protests against Dina Boluarte Apurímac protests
Armed violence
Deaths of Brian Pintado and Inti Sotelo Ayacucho massacre Juliaca massacre
Peru portal
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The first impeachment process against Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, then the incumbent President of Peru since 2016, was initiated by the Congress of Peru on 15 December 2017. According to Luis Galarreta, the President of the Congress, the whole process of impeachment could have taken as little as a week to complete.^[1] This event was part of the second stage of the political crisis generated by the confrontation between the Government of Pedro Pablo Kuczynski and the Congress, in which the opposition Popular Force had an absolute majority.

The impeachment request was rejected by the congress on 21 December 2017, for failing to obtain sufficient votes for the deposition.^[2]

Prior to the beginning of the process to remove him from office, President Kuczynski was accused by the congressional opposition of lying about receiving bribes from the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht, as he had initially denied receiving any payments at all from them, but later admitted that he had in fact been receiving payments to a firm he owned, Westfield Capital Ltd, while continuing to deny any irregularities in those payments.^[1] A number of other Latin American politicians had previously also been implicated in similar accusations of part-taking in financial irregularities involving Odebrecht, including Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos, Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto, Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, former Peruvian presidents Alan García, Alejandro Toledo and Ollanta Humala, as well as Keiko Fujimori, chairwoman of the party Popular Force and daughter of the former president Alberto Fujimori, and whom Kuczynski had narrowly defeated in the 2016 general election.

Upon the initiation of impeachment proceedings Congress president Luis Galarreta stated that he expected Kuczynski to be removed from office ″within a week″, as Kuczynski's Peruvians for Change party occupies only 18 of the 130 seats in Congress, while the opposition right-wing Popular Force (which is chaired by Keiko Fujimori) and left-wing Broad Front (headed by a former priest and environmental activist called Marco Arana), both in favor of Kuczynski's removal, together command 81 of the necessary two-thirds congressional majority (87 seats) needed to remove a president from office. According to reports by the Reuters news agency, Kuczynski had also lost the support of his own cabinet members, who had begun to urge him to resign as well. On 14 December 2017 he was also given an ultimatum by the congressional opposition to resign by the end of the day or face impeachment in Congress, to which he responded by saying: "It cost us a lot to get our democracy back. We're not going to lose it again. I'm not going to give up my honour, nor my values, nor my responsibilities as president of all Peruvians."^[3]

• President of Peru
• Congress of Peru
• Impeachment trial
• List of impeachments of heads of state
• Alberto Fujimori
• Second impeachment and resignation of Pedro Pablo Kuczynski
• First impeachment process against Martín Vizcarra
• Removal of Martín Vizcarra