At 11.45 on Thursday morning, six white-gloved pallbearers carried a coffin holding the body of the most divisive, beloved and reviled Peruvian politician of the last four decades. They passed the mourners, the cameras and the flag-topped lances of the Húsares de Junín cavalry regiment, and set it down in the hall of Lima’s brutalist culture ministry.
Behind the coffin, holding hands and dressed in black under a pale but warm spring sky, came its occupant’s eldest daughter and youngest son. A crowd of ministers, political allies and military top brass awaited them at the ministry.
