The short unhappy presidency of Pedro Pablo Kuczynski

PERU’S president, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, left office on March 21st much the way he had governed during his 20 months in power. He walked out of the massive doors of the presidential palace and started waving to onlookers before taking a call on his mobile phone and ducking into a car. It was a low-key exit for the former banker, who was elected with one of the slimmest majorities in recent history and had little support in congress or among the 30m Peruvians he governed. Most had little idea how Mr Kuczynski planned to help Peru become a solidly middle-class country with strong institutions, as he had promised. His administration, like his departure, seemed distracted.

What felled him, though, was his connection with Odebrecht, a Brazilian construction firm at the centre of multiple scandals across Latin America. In December congress obtained evidence that Westfield Capital, a company owned by Mr Kuczynski, had worked with Odebrecht while he was finance minister and prime minister in a government that awarded contracts to the company. He had repeatedly denied that he had had any contact with the firm. Congress, in which Mr Kuczynski’s party has just 15 of the 130 seats, started impeachment proceedings.