Behind Crowded VIP Jails

Peru’s legal prosecutors questioned President Dina Boluarte for hours in March in connection with what has come to be known as “Rolexgate”. The case is being rhymed with the infamous Watergate scandal that forced the United States’ President Richard Nixon to resign in 1974, two years before he completed his second term in office. Accused of accepting many expensive gifts and keeping them as hers, Boluarte, 61, is charged with possessing more than $400,000 in “deposits of unknown origin”. But she is unlikely to be unseated any time soon. An existing law protects a sitting president from being charged with crimes. An alternative is impeachment, which is most unlikely to be moved, given the prevailing power equations in the Congress.