He Congress of Peru dismissed the president Dina Boluarte, after a lightning political trial motivated by the insecurity crisis and appointed in his place the until now head of the legislature, José Jeri Oré, as the new interim president.
José Jerí, a 38-year-old lawyer, took the oath of office early for a term that will last until July 2026. Peru will hold general elections in April.
Since 2016, the Andean country has had seven presidents: three dismissed by Congress including Boluarte, two who resigned before suffering the same fate, one who completed his interim term and now Jerí.
Without her own bench or popular support, the former president found herself cornered by scandals, protests and a wave of extortions and murders by organized crime never seen before in Peru.
“The main enemy is outside, in the streets, the criminal gangs, the criminal organizations, they are our enemies today and as enemies we must declare war on them,” stated the new president.
Jerí will complete the mandate that Boluarte held since December 2022, when he took office due to the dismissal and imprisonment of former president Pedro Castillo.
After the removal, approved with the vote of 122 parliamentarians according to the final count of Congress, about a hundred people burst into joy in front of the Congress headquarters with a Peruvian flag, according to an AFP journalist.
“Dina falls. Out with the mafia pact,” said one of the signs held by one of the protesters.
The parliamentary majority had approved four vacancy motions against Boluarte on Thursday, invoking his “permanent moral incapacity” to lead the executive.
“The country has been mistreated by the cabinet and the president. Extortion and crime have grown, but she continues to live in a fantasy. She deserves to be punished,” said Congresswoman Norma Yarrow, of the right-wing Popular Renewal party.
Boluarte refused to appear before the Congress that had summoned her on Thursday night to defend herself in the impeachment trial.
His lawyer Juan Carlos Portugal alleged a lack of guarantees for “due process” due to the short time to prepare the defense.
Without support and under scandal
Beset by protests and scandals over alleged corruption that she always denied, Boluarte had no room to stay in office.
During his administration, he had been able to forge bureaucratic pacts with the conservative forces in exchange for them not voting, until now, on any vacancy request.
This allowed him to survive several prosecutorial investigations that, however, reduced his popularity to record lows.
“At all times I invoked unity, to work together (…) I have not thought about myself, but about the more than 34 million Peruvians,” Boluarte said this Friday after his dismissal, in a message that was interrupted by the state channel.
Its governability deteriorated in recent months due to the insecurity crisis and the protests that cornered it from different sectors. Lima has been the focus of discontent.
In recent weekends, numerous young people led by the Generation Z collective staged demonstrations in the city, which left dozens of people injured.
On Monday, the Peruvian capital was semi-paralyzed by a mobilization of transporters.
And on Thursday, hours before the impeachment process was activated, hitmen injured four musicians and a vendor during a concert in the south of Lima.
Scandals and processes
Boluarte took office on December 7, 2022, replacing the dismissed and imprisoned Pedro Castillo.
The then vice president came to power after the leftist leader’s failed attempt to govern by decree.
His rise was marked by protests that were repressed by public forces and left fifty people dead, according to human rights organizations.
The prosecutor’s office was investigating her for that reason, in addition to two other processes: one for alleged abandonment of her position when she had a nose job without notifying Congress, as stipulated by law; and another, for the so-called Rolexgate, a scandal that broke out in 2024 when the president appeared with some luxury jewelry that she had not declared in her list of assets.
With her dismissal, Boluarte loses her jurisdiction and may eventually be tried and convicted.
Currently, former presidents Alejandro Toledo and Ollanta Humala are imprisoned for corruption in a special prison east of Lima. Castillo is being held in the same place awaiting trial for his maneuver against parliament.
