Impeachment in Latin America

This chapter is divided into two parts. In the first (3.1), it provides an overview of the historical, social, and political commonalities Latin American nations share among themselves. It surveys the impact of colonization in the region, as well as the characteristics challenges it faced after emancipation, encompassing its struggles with state building, foreign intromission, authoritarian regimes, and late democratization. Many of these narratives play into the second section (3.2), which presents case studies of impeachments and other surrogate mechanisms. Over ten cases are analyzed bringing explanations on the political circumstances that led to impeachment, as well as shedding light into the legal debates and narratives exposed by legal communities and impeachment actors. By doing so, this chapter reveals much about impeachment’s true nature, as well as how its theory finds implementation in practice. The impeachment procedures contemplated in this section are those of Fernando Collor (Brazil, 1992), Carlos Andrés Pérez (Venezuela, 1993), Ernesto Samper (Colombia, 1996), Cubas Grau and Gonzalés Macchi (Paraguay, 1999-2003), Alberto Fujimori (Peru, 2001), Fernando Lugo (Paraguay, 2012), Dilma Rousseff (Brazil, 2016), Michel Temer (Brazil, 2017), and Sebastián Pinera (Chile, 2019). The surrogate procedures against Abdalá Bucaram (Ecuador, 1997), and Manuel Zelaya (Honduras, 2009) were also analyzed.