Do we like them?

Do we like Pedro Castillo?

Our score: 4 out of 10. A court-proven attempt to shut down Congress and a cold shoulder to LGBTQ+ rights, set against a real rural-teacher-to-president story.

Castillo was born in 1969 in Tacabamba, in Peru's Cajamarca region, the third of nine kids in a farming family. He taught from 1995 at the village school he'd attended as a boy, and led a teachers' strike in 2007. In 2021 he ran for Perú Libre and won the runoff, the rural schoolteacher who beat the establishment.

It unravelled fast. On 7 December 2022, facing impeachment, he went on air to announce moves to dissolve Congress. On 27 November 2025 Peru's Supreme Court convicted him of conspiracy to commit rebellion by a 2-to-1 majority, finding he had usurped the exercise of power. He got 11 years, 5 months and 15 days, a two-year ban from office, and a joint order to pay S/12 million in civil damages.

On the harm check: the Washington Blade reported that during the 2021 campaign he opposed marriage rights for same-sex couples and said LGBTQ+ and intersex issues would not be a priority. It described no specific anti-LGBTQ+ policy actions from him. One briefly serving minister had praised a 1963 Fidel Castro speech with derogatory remarks about gay men, but that was the minister's post, not Castillo's. We couldn't open further coverage on his record on women, migrants or the climate, so the evidence is thin.

The recent chapter is all about getting out. In February 2026 his lawyer filed a pardon request on humanitarian grounds, and the interim government said it had no clemency on its agenda. Castillo denied wrongdoing and says he's politically persecuted. In July he welcomed the UN opinion on his detention and urged Peru to obey it, and his case is still described as under appeal.

Where does that leave us? His rise from a village classroom to the presidency is a real story, and the UN opinion is part of the picture. But a court found he tried to shut down the legislature, and his stance on LGBTQ+ rights was cool at best. We found no verified charity or standout kindness to tip the balance, so this is a close call that leans uncomfortable rather than a clear yes.