At the Government Palace, Peruvian President Dina Boluarte presided over a ceremony for the partial reorganization of her cabinet that includes Alberto Otálora as the new prime minister. Meanwhile, Congress has set an early general election for April 2024, despite protests demanding a new government immediately. In other news, the president of Mexico Andrés Manuel López Obrador confirmed the arrival in that country of the family of deposed Pedro Castillo.
Former Defense Minister Luis Alberto Otárola became the new Prime Minister of Peru on December 21, in the midst of one of the country’s biggest political crises.
Otárola, who replaces Pedro Ángulo, was sworn in in a ceremony preceded by President Dina Boluarte, at the Government Palace, in which six other ministers were also sworn in.
Ángulo was only in office for a week and was dismissed by the new president, after his appointment was questioned for being the subject of 13 investigations in the Public Ministry for allegations of sexual harassment when he was working as a prosecutor.
Meanwhile, Jorge Chávez took over as the new head of the Defense portfolio and Víctor Rojas as Interior Minister.
In a ceremony held at the Government Palace, the president @DinaErcilia Boluarte today swore in Ambassador Ana Cecilia Gervasi, ratifying her as Minister of Foreign Affairs, in the cabinet chaired by Alberto Otárola. pic.twitter.com/m4pnG8aa30
– Chancellery Peru ?? (@CancilleriaPeru) December 21, 2022
The Ministry of Education will be led by Óscar Herrera, after the resignation last week of Patricia Correa, and the Ministry of Culture will be led by Leslie Urtega, after the departure of Jair Pérez.
As the reason for their resignations, Correa and Pérez cited in a letter the violence and deaths in the protests that have shaken the nation, after the removal and arrest of Pedro Castillo, on December 7, after he tried to dissolve Congress.
The new appointments this Wednesday are a partial renewal of the cabinet in which some key figures remain.
The team is made up of eight women, almost half of the 18 people that make up the Council of Ministers of Boluarte, the first female president of the nation, and who served as vice president in the Castillo Executive.
Peruvian congress backs tentative plan for early elections
In the midst of the national political crisis marked by fateful riots, the Legislature set elections for April 2024.
While the proposal was approved by 91 of the 130 members of Congress, the plan, which seeks to add an article to Peru’s Constitution, must be ratified by another two-thirds majority at the next annual legislative session before it can be finally adopted. .
However, the decision prevents the elections from taking place in December 2023, as Boluarte had proposed, who was elected together with Castillo for an Executive that should end in 2026, and insisted on legislators to endorse the process due to strong social discontent .
“Don’t be blind (…) Don’t look for excuses, it’s in your hands,” said the head of state last Saturday, December 17, one day after the Peruvian deputies rejected the elections for next year.
The offer to go to the polls in 2023 failed to garner enough votes after leftist lawmakers abstained, conditioning their support on the promise of a Constituent Assembly to review Peru’s political charter, something conservatives denounce as a risk. for the nation’s free-market economic model.
In the streets time runs differently. While the congressmen aim to remain in their positions for about a year and a half more, the protesters urge new votes to choose both a new president and a new Congress.
However, none of this will happen soon and the deputies maintain that April 2024 is the shortest possible time to prepare a new electoral call.
The mobilizations continue and leave at least 21 people dead and hundreds injured. Social discontent is growing in a nation that has seen six presidents in the last five years and has become the nation with the greatest political instability in Latin America.
AMLO confirms the arrival in Mexico of Pedro Castillo’s family
The Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, known as AMLO, confirmed this Wednesday that the wife of the deposed Peruvian president Pedro Castillo, Lilia Paredes, and their minor children, Arnold and Alondra Castillo, arrived in Mexico City this Wednesday, after receiving a safe-conduct to seek asylum in that country.
Castillo’s family arrived with the Mexican ambassador in Lima, Pablo Monroy, who was expelled from the country after the Peruvian Legislature gave him 72 hours to leave and declared him persona “non grata.”
The fury of the Peruvian Foreign Ministry was unleashed after the AMLO government confirmed that it would give refuge to Castillo’s relatives. Lima considered the decision as a repeated and “unacceptable interference” by the López Obrador Administration in the internal affairs of Peru.
“The statements by the Mexican president are especially serious considering the violence in our country, which is incompatible with the legitimate right of every person to demonstrate peacefully,” said the Peruvian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, adding that the wife of the removed president was under investigation criminal.
Although he did not specify the reasons, the relatives of the ousted head of state have been peppered with allegations of alleged corruption.
At the moment, the protection of the Mexican Government does not cover Yennifer Paredes, sister of the former first lady and investigated by the Prosecutor’s Office for serving as a “front man” for an alleged corruption network, entrenched in the Castillo Administration.
However, the Mexican president has expressed his support for granting asylum to both Castillo and the rest of his family circle, considering them to be politically persecuted. An appreciation strongly rejected by Lima.
With AP and local media
