Peru's Public Administration Dilemma: Balancing Political Trust and Technical Merit

As Peru undergoes a government transition, the critical question of appointments to public office resurfaces, impacting the effectiveness of public management for the entire five-year term. The Peruvian state operates with two competing logics: political trust, which seeks alignment with the current administration, and technical merit, which prioritizes continuity and managerial capacity. These are not inherently contradictory but become adversarial when trust is reduced to partisan affiliation and merit becomes a mere formality. Official data reveals that out of approximately 11,000 leadership positions, including about 4,500 public director roles responsible for translating policy into results, less than 5% are filled through public merit-based competitions. This situation is even more pronounced in regional and local governments, where virtually no positions are filled this way, indicating a stagnation in the civil service reform initiated over 15 years ago. The cost of this approach is evident in the high turnover within the executive branch; during the current government, 456 general directors and 74 general secretaries rotated through ministries and attached agencies. Each rotation signifies a handover, a restart of the learning curve, and a halt in policy implementation, leading to delays in projects and services. A new government, however, has a unique opportunity to implement changes with minimal political cost by clearly separating the legitimate trust required by ministers from the merit that should govern the broader administrative structure. Achieving this balance requires distinct decisions: limiting trust-based appointments to the cabinet and advisors, filling line director positions through competitive selection, implementing certified candidate pools and performance agreements for remaining trust positions, and ensuring oversight focuses on technical and ethical suitability, not just procedural compliance. The Chilean model of high public management, where politicians select from certified candidates, offers a viable precedent. Ultimately, trust should stem from demonstrated competence, and professionalizing public administration enhances, rather than diminishes, the political authority's governing capacity.