Changing Something So That Nothing Changes. The Decorative Reform of Mandatory Primary Elections in Peru

Objective/context: In 2019, promoted by President Martín Vizcarra, the Congress of the Republic of Peru sanctioned a law on mandatory primary elections for voters and political parties. However, the regulation was not implemented, given that it was suspended by the Legislative Branch for the general elections in 2021 and the regional elections in 2022. Methodology: This paper studies the reform process of mandatory, simultaneous, and open primaries (PASO, for its acronym in Spanish) in Peru and its counter-reform based on its suspension on two occasions (2021 and 2022). Twenty-three key actors were interviewed for this research, including congresspersons, ministers, electoral officials, and researchers, in addition to the revision of secondary sources and newspapers of legislative sessions. Conclusions: The paper concludes that PASO were a “decorative” reform, i.e., a law passed without the intention of implementing it. Its sanction was the product of a reformist coalition between civil society and the President of the nation, where the objectives of increasing popular support for President Vizcarra and the need to improve the legitimacy of the political system converged. The reform was resisted by congresspersons who formed two counter-reformist coalitions that suspended the PASO on two occasions. Originality: The research shows that these counter-reform coalitions are intrinsically linked to the atomization and personalization of the Peruvian party system, characterized by hyper-personalism and a lack of party structures. In addition, it generates theoretical contributions to studying the processes of reforms and counter-reforms in the context of institutional weakness.