Alison Sargent is pleased to welcome Tiziano Breda, Senior Analyst for Latin America and the Caribbean at ACLED. He argues that Peru's chronic instability is rooted as much in institutional weaknesses as in electoral competition. The reintroduction of a bicameral legislature, he notes, may help curb the cycle in which Congress has repeatedly "deposed presidents and reinstated new ones," but neither candidate is likely to enjoy the parliamentary support necessary to govern decisively.

The governments of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, and Peru on Thursday signed in Santiago a joint cooperation agreement against transnational organized crime, in a meeting convened by the Chilean government of President José Antonio Kast and attended by five foreign ministers, four security ministers, and one interior minister. The so-called Santiago Regional Compact articulates five areas of cooperation and will be presented before the 56th General Assembly of the Organization of American States to extend the initiative to the rest of the continent.