Peru Elections

Peru's former President Alejandro Toledo on Monday was sentenced to 20 years and six months in prison in a case involving Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht, which became synonymous with corruption across Latin America, where it paid millions of dollars in bribes to government officials and others. Authorities accused Toledo of accepting $35 million in bribes from Odebrecht in exchange for allowing a highway to be built in the South American country. The National Superior Court of Specialized Criminal Justice in the capital, Lima, imposed the sentence after years of legal wrangling, including a dispute over whether Toledo, who governed Peru from 2001 to 2006, could be extradited from the United States. Odebrecht, which built some of Latin America's most crucial infrastructure projects, admitted to US authorities in 2016 to having bought government contracts throughout the region with generous bribes. The investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice spun probes in several ...

Peru's Congress removed President Pedro Castillo from office Wednesday and replaced him with the vice president, shortly after Castillo decreed the dissolution of the legislature ahead of a scheduled vote to oust him. The national ombudsman's office, Constitutional Tribunal and Supreme Court called Castillo's move to dissolve the Congress a coup, although at least one expert disagreed. Peru's Congress has the ability to remove the president and the president has the ability to dissolve the Congress, so "technically, it is not a coup, said Eduardo Gamarra, a political science and international relations professor at Florida International University. The confusion is in the 15,000 interpretations that exist about who prevails, the Congress or the president, he said. The one who wins will be the one with more power, he said. Lawmakers voted 101-6 with 10 abstentions to remove Castillo from office for reasons of permanent moral incapacity. Castillo left the presidential palace in an .

Ex-Wall Street banker Pedro Pablo Kuczynski made a brief, triumphant statement, but stopped short of declaring victory

With 99.5% of the polling stations counted, front-runner Pedro Pablo Kuczynski was topping rival Keiko Fujimori

With tallies from more than 97% of polling stations counted, Kuczynski had 50.2% of the votes compared with Fujimori's 49.8%

Conservative Keiko Fujimori and her centre-right rival Pedro Pablo Kuczynski were virtually tied in exit polls