The new president of Peru, battling a surge in gang-related violence, on Tuesday named a retired hardline general as interior minister to oversee his "war against crime."
President José Jerí, 38, assumed the Presidency last week after Congress voted to impeach unpopular leader Dina Boluarte. He has promised to lead a transitional government until elections on April 12, 2026.
Jerí swore in a new Cabinet on Tuesday and named 61-year-old retired police general Vicente Tiburcio, who had previously led Peru's war on the Sendero Luminoso ("Shining Path") guerrilla group, as his interior minister.
Tiburcio was chosen for his experience in fighting "organised crime, drug-rafficking and terrorism," the government said in a statement.
Jerí had vowed to tackle a wave of extortion and murder that has plagued Peru in recent years.
On Tuesday, he warned gang-leaders that "if they continue controlling our streets from the prisons, we will act with more determination. We will change everything that needs to be changed. You've been warned."
Jerí, who was the head of Congress until last week, appointed lawyer Ernesto Álvarez Miranda, a 64-year-old former Constitutional Court president, as the head of his 19-member Cabinet, which includes four women.
Peru will hold scheduled presidential elections next year, when Boluarte's term would have ended. She faces multiple investigations for corruption and abuse of power.
Impeachment trial
Boluarte was removed in a swift impeachment trial after a gun attack Wednesday on a group of cumbia musicians performing on stage in Lima – seen as the last straw after a string of attacks on performers and business owners by extortion gangs.
Unlike the impeachment of her left-wing predecessor, Pedro Castillo, in December 2022, the ouster of the supremely unpopular Boluarte sparked no protests.
She left office with a disapproval rating of 96 percent, according to the polling firm Ipsos, rivalled only by that of Congress, at 89 percent.
Her impeachment follows months of protests by bus companies, merchants and, more recently, students, over shakedowns by criminal gangs – and attacks on those who refuse to pay protection money.
Extortion and contract killings have been a feature of daily life across the South American country.
Gangs like Los Pulpos and Venezuela's Tren de Aragua, which operates across Latin America, hold people from all walks of life for ransom.
In Peru, reported cases of extortion shot up from 2,396 in 2023 to 15,336 in 2024, a 540 percent increase.
At least 47 bus drivers have been murdered this year in hits blamed on extortion gangs.
With each new attack, the parties that had propped up Boluarte in Congress became more critical of the government.
Their impeachment of Boluarte was an attempt to demonstrate that the security crisis was her "sole and exclusive responsibility," Fernando Tuesta, political scientist at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, told AFP.
Peru has had seven presidents in the past nine years, three of whom were removed by Congress.
Enter 'Porky'
The ultra-conservative mayor of Peru's capital resigned Monday and announced a run for president of the Andean country that is grappling with a surge in violent crime and political upheaval.
Mayor of Lima since 2022, Rafael López Aliaga is an engineer by training and a wealthy entrepreneur who made his fortune in hotels and railroads. He is currently the favourite in opinion polls concerning Peru's next leader.
This marks the second time López Aliaga, 64, has run for president, following a bid in 2021.
"I announce my resignation from the position of mayor of the Metropolitan Municipality of Lima to run in the primaries of the Popular Renewal party," López Aliaga said in a letter read out before the city council.
A member of the traditionalist Catholic group Opus Dei, the portly, balding López Aliaga has embraced the nickname "Porky," turning it into something of a political symbol.
In June, when a supporter gave him a piglet in a cape as he visited a road project, he nicknamed it "Worky" to highlight his "love of work."
Peru's media is calling his second run for president "Porky's revenge."
López Aliaga – an admirer of Donald Trump and El Salvador's Nayib Bukele – calls for the worst criminals, whom he refers to as "urban terrorists," to be tried by military tribunals.
– TIMES/AFP
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