LIMA, Peru — A day after tendering his resignation, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, the third Peruvian president to fall victim to Latin America’s corruption mega-scandal, appeared to be facing increasing legal jeopardy.
According to local reports, prosecutors have requested that Kuczynski be barred from leaving the country until they finalize their investigations into his dealings with the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht, which has admitted paying about $800 million in bribes to win public contracts in a dozen countries, mostly in Latin America.
The move marks yet another humiliation for the 79-year-old center-right economist, whose surprise election in July 2016 was widely hailed as an advance for Peruvian governance.
But his downfall, over allegations of using his government contacts to lobby for Odebrecht in past years — including indirectly receiving six-figure payments for work reportedly carried out during a previous stint as economy minister — appears to have left Peru’s democracy in a more fragile state than ever. Kuczynski has insisted he is innocent, having placed a “Chinese wall” between his public work and his consulting firm, and said that the payments were for work done by business partners of which he was unaware.
