Salvador del Solar | Elections Without Representation: Peru and the Limits of Democracy

The Moynihan Institute's Program on Latin America and the Caribbean presents Salvador del Solar, former minister of culture (2017) and prime minister (2019) of Peru. 

In less than a decade, Peru has had eight presidents—not through coups, but through the systematic weaponization of Congress. An all-powerful yet deeply fragmented legislature has hollowed out democratic norms, rewritten the rules of political competition, and severed the link between elections and genuine representation. What remains is a the form of democracy without much of its substance.

Salvador del Solar (Lima, 1970) is a lawyer from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru. He is a former de Sardon-Glass fellow and he studied international relations at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. He served as Peru’s minister of culture (2017) and prime minister (2019) and was a visiting fellow at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University (2018). He is an actor, screenwriter and director of the films Magallanes and Ramón y Ramón.