Washington, DC, May 16, 2023 --  

Democracy can't survive when the prospect of presidential retirement means jail, exile and death.

Disturbingly, Kuczynski is not alone in his legal troubles. Last month, his onetime boss, ex-President Alejandro Toledo was extradited from the United States to Peru to face similar charges.² Former President Ollanta Humala who served between Toledo and Kuczynski has also been charged in the scandal, and former Preisdent Alan Garcia committed suicide in 2019 as police arrived for his arrest.³

All of these cases are related to the huge corruption scandal around Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht, affecting politicians in countries across the Americas. Brazillian prosecutors uncovered a huge network of bribes for public contracts and forced the company to pay a $2.6 billion in fines.⁴

Sadly, Peru's tradition of jailing ex-presidents is not limited to corruption. In December, former President Pedro Castillo was arrested for plotting a coup in ordering congress dissolved. In March, a judge extended his detection extended to three years.⁵ Ex-president Alberto Fujimori fled the country in 2000 and was convicted of multiple human rights and corruption charges. He was arrested in Chile in 2005, he has been in and out of prison ever since.⁶

Aside from a handful of caretaker ex-presidents who served briefly since Kuczynski, all other living presidents of Peru are in jail. This is a terrible precedent. As federal prosecutors considers charges against former President Donald Trump, the plight of Peru's political system should be kept in mind.

To understand what happens when national leaders cannot peacefully retire, look at Ukraine in the years before its break with Russia. In the first decade after the Soviet collapse, Ukraine's electoral politics were largely window dressing for back-room deals between the political class and oligarchs. When an independent challenger rocked this system in 2004, it kicked off a particularly brutal era in Ukrainian politics. Before the Orange Revolution overturned a fraudulent election in favor of liberal President Viktor Yushchenko, the soon-to-be president was poisoned by dioxin during the campaign and nearly died.⁷

In the next election in 2010, his Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko lost to Russian-backed President Viktor Yanukovych from the now separatist Donbas region. The loser found herself convicted and jailed for "abuse of power" based on policy decisions that Yanukovych didn't like.⁸ Yanukovych rigged the 2014 election to stay in power, but then fled to Russia when he feared for his life in a second revolution, allowing his opponent to finally be released from jail.

Ukraine shows why it is so important to allow former leaders to retire peacefully. If admitting electoral defeat means exile, imprisonment, or death, it creates a huge incentive to never give up power. Given the current situation in Peru, how could any leader feel secure in handing over power to the opposition?

America is lucky to be free of these conditions. An amazing 37 former presidents have retired from office (often after handing over power to an opposing party) and all of them lived out their lives peacefully without being jailed. The only exceptions to this history were eight U.S. presidents who died while in office -- four from natural causes and four from assassination.

Unfortunately, former president Donald Trump has tarnished this proud record with typically tawdry behavior. In March, he become the first former president to be criminally charged, based on allegations he paid hush money to a porn star during the 2016 election.⁹ Other legal battles also threaten Trump, most seriously those stemming from his incitement of a mob to invade the U.S. Capitol in a ham-fisted attempt to block recognition of his electoral loss.

To date, the U.S. Justice Department has have been appropriately cautious in not quickly charging Trump over his involvement in the Capitol invasion. Because the stakes are so high, the bar for charging Trump must be unusually high as well.

If there is an irony in the need to exercise restraint in prosecuting Trump, it is that Trump never showed any restraint himself. He threatened to jail former Senator and First Lady Hillary Clinton when she opposed him during the 2016 election. And his attempts to unlawfully overturn the 2020 election show that he was willing to betray democracy even before facing the specter of criminal charges.

While keeping Trump faithful to democracy is a lost cause, restraint when prosecuting Trump remains important for all American presidents who come after him. Can presidents trust that they will be treated honestly and fairly, and avoid politically-motivated prosecution once they leave office? If not, expect the future of American democracy to look a lot less like America's laudable past and a lot more like the tragic conditions you see in today's Peru and Ukraine.

Notes:

1. Agence France-Presse, Peru Prosecutors Seek 35-Year Jail Term For ex-President, May 13, 2023

2. La Prensa Latina, Former President Toledo Lands in Peru After Extradition From US, April 23, 2023

3. BBC World, Alan García: Peru's Former president Kills Himself Ahead of Arrest, April 17, 2019

4. Voice of America, Brazil's Odebrecht Changes Name After Years of Scandals, December 18, 2020

5. Reuters, Peru Court Doubles Detention Time for ex-President Castillo, March 9, 2023

6. Aljazeera, Fujimori Extradited From Chile, September 22, 2007

7. BBC News, Viktor Yushchenko: Ukraine's ex-President on Being Poisoned, April 2, 2018

8. BBC News, Ukraine ex-PM Yulia Tymoshenko Jailed Over Gas Deal, October 11, 2011

9. NPR, Trump Becomes the First Former U.S. President to Face Criminal Charges, March 31, 2023