Pedro Castillo

José Pedro Castillo Terrones (born 19 October 1969) is a Peruvian politician, former elementary school teacher, and union leader who served as the President of Peru from 28 July 2021 to 7 December 2022.

Castillo attempted to illegally dissolve Congress through a self-coup on 7 December 2022 while citing Congress' efforts to block his attempted policies, resulting in the legislative body impeaching and removing him from office the same day.

Born to a peasant family in Puña, Cajamarca, Castillo began working in Peru's informal economy as a teenager to earn funds for his studies in education and later returned to his hometown to become a primary school teacher.

During the internal conflict in Peru that began in the 1980s, Castillo worked in his youth as a patrolman of Rondas campesinas to defend against the Shining Path.

From 1995, Castillo worked as a primary school teacher and principal at School 10465 in the town of Puña, Chota.

In addition to teaching, he was responsible for cooking for his students and cleaning their classroom.

According to Castillo, the community constructed the school after receiving no government assistance.

Rural teaching in Peru is poorly paid but highly respected and influential within local communities, which led Castillo to become involved with teachers' unions.

With his working background as a patrolman for Rondas campesinas and being a schoolteacher, two of the most respected jobs in Peruvian society, Castillo was able to establish a high level of political support.

In 2002, Castillo unsuccessfully ran for the mayorship of Anguía as the representative of Alejandro Toledo's centre-left party Possible Peru.

He served as a leading member of the party in Cajamarca from 2005 until the party's dissolution in 2017 following its poor results in the 2016 Peruvian general election.

Following his leadership during the teachers' strike, numerous political parties in Peru approached Castillo to promote him as a congressional candidate, though he refused and instead decided to run for the presidency after encouragement from unions.

He attained political prominence as a leading figure in a school teachers' strike in 2017 and ran in the 2021 presidential election as the candidate of the Free Peru party.

Castillo announced his presidential candidacy after seeing his students undergo hardships from the lack of resources in rural Peru, with the election occurring amidst the country's COVID-19 pandemic and a period of democratic deterioration in the nation.

With the support of individuals living in rural and outlying provinces, he placed first in the initial round of the presidential vote and advanced to the second round where he won against his opponent Keiko Fujimori.

Castillo's victory in the presidential race was confirmed on 19 July 2021 and he was inaugurated on 28 July.

After taking office, Castillo named far-left and left-wing cabinets, due to the influence of Free Peru leader Vladimir Cerrón and other more left-wing politicians.

A social conservative, Castillo ultimately began to align his policies with Congress and Evangelical groups on social issues, including his opposition to same-sex marriage, gender studies and sex education.

He would leave the Free Peru party in June 2022 to govern as an independent.

In attempts to appease the right-wing Congress, he later appointed members of center and center-right political parties as ministers of state.

Castillo was noted for appointing four different governments in six months, a Peruvian record.

Castillo's presidency had a minority in congress, and faced opposition which led to three impeachment proceedings, although the first two failed to reach the necessary votes to remove him from office.

Following the second failed impeachment vote in March 2022, protests took place across the country against high fuel and fertilizer prices caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and sanctions against Russia.

Mining protests also intensified as the country's economy plummeted.

On 1 December 2022, Peru's Congress approved a motion initiated by opposition lawmakers to start the third formal attempt to impeach him since he took office.

On 7 December 2022, Castillo, citing obstruction by Congress, attempted a self-coup, form a provisional government, institute a national curfew, and call for the formation of an assembly to draft a new constitution.

Castillo was impeached by Congress within the day and was detained for sedition and high treason.

He was succeeded by First Vice President Dina Boluarte.

After his removal, pro-Castillo protests broke out calling for new elections and the release of Castillo from detention, which the new right-wing government responded with violence, resulting in the Ayacucho massacre and Juliaca massacre.

Castillo was born to an impoverished and illiterate peasant family in Puña, Tacabamba, Chota Province, Department of Cajamarca.

Despite being the location of South America's largest gold mine, Cajamarca has remained one of the poorest regions in Peru.

He is the third of nine children.

His father, Ireño Castillo, was born on the hacienda of a landowning family where he performed labor-intensive work.

His family rented land from the landowners until General Juan Velasco Alvarado took power and redistributed property from landowners to peasants, with Ireño receiving a plot of land he had been working on.

As a child, Castillo balanced his schooling with farm work at home, completing his elementary and high school education at the Octavio Matta Contreras de Cutervo Higher Pedagogical Institute.

Castillo's daily trek to and from school involved walking along steep cliffside paths for two hours.

As a teenager and young adult, Castillo traveled throughout Peru to earn funds for his studies.

Beginning at the age of twelve, each year he and his father walked 140 km for seasonal work in the coffee plantations of the Peruvian Amazonia.

Castillo also sold ice cream, newspapers, and cleaned hotels in Lima.

He studied Primary Education at the Octavio Carrera Education Institute of Superior Studies and gained a master's degree in Educational Psychology from the César Vallejo University.