The Congress of the Republic () is the bicameral body which exercises legislative power in Peru. Due to the broadly interpreted impeachment wording in the Constitution of Peru, the President of Peru can be removed by Congress without cause, effectively making the legislature more powerful than the executive branch. Congress obtained nearly absolute control of Peru's government following a ruling in February 2023 when the Constitutional Court of Peru, whose members are directly chosen by Congress, removed judicial oversight of the legislative body.
Congress's composition is established by Chapter I of Title IV of the Constitution of Peru. Congress is composed of representatives who sit in congressional districts allocated to each region, as well as two special districts, Lima Province and Peruvian citizens living abroad, on a basis of population as measured by the Peruvian Census in multi-member districts.
Congress is charged with the responsibility to pass laws and legislative resolutions, as well as to interpret, amend, or repeal existing laws. Congress also ratifies international treaties, approves the national budget, and authorizes loans on behalf of the country. It may also override presidential observations to bills by a vote of more than half the legal number of congressmen. It can also remove government official including the President, consent to the entry of foreign troops into the national territory, and authorize the President to leave the country. Congress meets at the Legislative Palace in Lima.
The presiding officer is the President of Congress, who is elected by the members thereof (and is therefore traditionally the leader of the controlling party). The President and three vice-presidents are chosen by the controlling governing coalition.
History
19th century
The first Peruvian Congress was installed in 1822 as the Constitutional Congress led by Francisco Xavier de Luna Pizarro. In 1829, the government installed a bicameral Congress, made up by a Senate and a Chamber of Deputies. This system was interrupted a number of times by Constitutional Congresses that created new Constitutions every few years.
20th century The Deputies reunited in the Legislative Palace and the Senators went to the former Peruvian Inquisition of Lima until 1930, when Augusto B. Leguía was overthrown by Luis Miguel Sánchez Cerro. He installed a Constitutional Congress (1931–1933) that promulgated the Constitution of 1933. By order of the president, the Peruvian Aprista Party members that were in Congress were arrested for their revolutionary doctrines against the government. When Sánchez Cerro was assassinated in 1933 by an APRA member, General Óscar R. Benavides took power and closed Congress until 1939, when Manuel Prado Ugarteche was elected president. During various dictatorships, the Congress was interrupted by coups d'état. In 1968, Juan Velasco Alvarado overthrew president Fernando Belaúnde by a coup d'état, again closing Congress.
1979 constitution The 1979 Constitution was promulgated on 12 July 1979 by the Constitutional Assembly elected following 10 years of military rule and replaced the suspended 1933 Constitution. It became effective in 1980 with the re-election of deposed President Fernando Belaúnde. It limited the president to a single five-year term and established a bicameral legislature consisting of a 60-member Senate (upper house) and a 180-member Chamber of Deputies (lower house). Members of both chambers were elected for five-year terms, running concurrently with that of the president. Party-list proportional representation was used for both chambers: on a regional basis for the Senate, and using the D'Hondt method for the lower house. Members of both houses had to be Peruvian citizens, with a minimum age of 25 for deputies and 35 for senators.
Move to unicameral body At the beginning of the 1990s, the bicameral congress had a low public approval rating. President Alberto Fujimori did not have the majority in both chambers; the opposition led the Congress, impeding the power that Fujimori had as president. He made the decision of dissolving Congress by a self-coup to his government in 1992. Following the self-coup, in which Congress was dissolved, the Democratic Constitutional Congress established a single chamber of 120 members. The Democratic Constitutional Congress promulgated the 1993 Constitution which gave more power to the President. The new unicameral Congress started working in 1995, dominated by Fujimori's Congressmen in the majority. The Congress permitted a one-year term for a Congressman or Congresswoman to become President of Congress.
21st century
Political crisis According to Walter Albán, head of Transparency International Peru, the Congress of Peru has recently been infiltrated by criminal groups that obstruct reforms in order to maintain their status and parliamentary immunity. During the presidencies of Ollanta Humala, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski and Martín Vizcarra, the right-wing Congress led by the daughter of the former Peruvian dictator Alberto Fujimori, Keiko Fujimori, obstructed much of the actions performed by the presidents. Fujimorists in Congress "earned a reputation as hardline obstructionists for blocking initiatives popular with Peruvians aimed at curbing the nation's rampant corruption" according to the Associated Press. Due to broadly interpreted impeachment wording in the Constitution of Peru (1993), Congress can impeach the president on the vague grounds of "moral incapacity", effectively making the legislature more powerful than the executive branch.
On 9 December 2018 in the 2018 Peruvian constitutional referendum promoted by President Vizcarra, voters accepted three of four of the proposals in the referendum, only rejecting the final proposal of creating a bicameral congress when Vizcarra withdrew his support when the Fujimorist-led congress manipulated the proposals contents which would have removed power from the presidency. The referendum also removed the immediate re-election of officeholders. The 2016–2021 congressional term was dissolved by President Martín Vizcarra in September 2019, triggering the 2019–2020 Peruvian constitutional crisis. Vizcarra issued a decree that set snap elections for 26 January 2020. The representatives served out the remainder of the original legislative term, which expired in July 2021. On 9 November 2020, Congress responded to Vizcarra, voting to remove him from office based on allegations of bribery.
Following the 2021 Peruvian general election, far right parties, including Go on Country, Popular Force and Popular Renewal, gained control of Congress.
An alliance led by Popular Action member María del Carmen Alva successfully gained control of Peru's Congress. After left-wing presidential candidate Pedro Castillo won the presidency, Fujimori and her supporters made claims of electoral fraud, leading obstructionist efforts to overturn the election with support of citizens in Lima. From the beginning of his presidency, Castillo was targeted by Congress, whom made it clear that they wanted to remove him from office by impeachment. On 7 December 2022, Castillo attempted to dissolve Congress, arguing that the legislative body, which had obstructed many of his policies, was serving oligopolistic businesses and had colluded with the Constitutional Court of Peru to undermine the executive branch, thereby creating a "congressional dictatorship". The move was rejected by state institutions and he was removed from office and arrested.
Castillo's vice president, Dina Boluarte, assumed the presidency amid the widespread protests against her government. Following her ascension to the presidency, Boluarte aligned herself with the far-right Congress. In October 2025, Boluarte was removed from office by Congress on "moral incapacity" grounds amid mounting public anger over insecurity and corruption allegations. In his position in the order of succession, president of Congress José Jerí succeeded Boluarte, initially assumed the presidency leading into the 2026 elections. Jerí became Peru's seventh president in nine years. However, in February 2026, José Jerí was removed from office by Congress for holding undisclosed meetings with Zhihua Yang, a Chinese businessman under scrutiny from the Peruvian government. He was succeeded by José María Balcázar, who was elected by Congress to serve as president of Congress and thus made president of Peru.
Return to bicameralism In March 2024, 91 out of 130 members of Congress voted to restore the Senate with the general election of 2026. The reconstituted Senate will have 60 members each serving a five-year term. The Senate will have the power to appoint the presidents of the Central Reserve Bank and the Court of Auditors, among other offices. The Senate will also have the power of final approval over proposed legislation and will meet with the lower chamber in a joint session to approve budgets. Unlike the lower chamber, which is elected entirely by proportional representation, the Senate will have 30 members elected from individual departmental constituencies (Lima has four seats, the others one) and the remaining 30 elected proportionately nationwide.
Membership Qualifications Article 90 of the Peruvian Constitution sets three qualifications for congressmen: (1) they must be natural-born citizens; (2) they must be at least 25 years old; (3) they must be an eligible voter. Candidates for president cannot simultaneously run for congress while vice-presidential candidates can. Furthermore, Article 91 states that high-ranking government officers and any member of the armed forces or national police can only become congressmen six months after leaving their post.
Elections and term Congressmen serve for a five-year term and cannot be reelected for a new term, immediately, in the same position. Elections for congress happen simultaneously as the election for president. Seats in congress are assigned to each region in proportion to the region's population. Congressional elections take place in April.
The D'Hondt method, a party-list proportional representation system, is used to allocate seats in congress. Political parties publish their party list for each region ahead of the election. Candidates do not need to be members of the political party they run for but may run for such party as a guest. Each candidate is assigned a number within the list. The citizenry thus votes for the party of their preference directly. Additionally, voters may write two specific candidates' number on the ballot as their personal preference. The newly elected congress takes office on 26 July of the year of the election.
Disciplinary action Congressmen may not be tried or arrested without prior authorization from Congress from the time of their election until a month after the end of their term. Congressmen must follow the Congress's code of ethics, which is part of its self-imposed Standing Rules of Congress. La Comisión de Ética Parlamentaria, or Parliamentary Ethics Committee, is in charge of enforcing the code and punishing violators. Discipline consist of (a) private, written admonishments; (b) public admonishments through a Congressional resolution; (c) suspension from three to 120 days from their legislative functions.
Any congressmen may lose their parliamentary immunity if authorized by Congress. The process is started by the Criminal Sector of the Supreme Court who presents the case to the Presidency of Congress. The case is then referred to a special committee of 15 congressmen known as Comisión de Levantamiento de Inmunidad Parlamentaria, or Committee on Lifting Parliamentary Immunity, that decides if the petition should be heard by the body as a whole. The accused congressmen has the right to a lawyer and to defend himself before the committee and before the Plenary Assembly. The final decision is then communicated back to the Supreme Court.