Peruvian President Dina Boluarte on Monday replaced six ministers after they resigned as her government is rocked by a political crisis fueled by an alleged illicit enrichment scandal involving luxury watches.
The Cabinet shakeup came as lawmakers submitted to parliament a request to remove her from office for “permanent moral incapacity” three days after police broke down the front door of her residence to search for the watches as part of an investigation.
The request was submitted by lawmakers from various parties, including Peru Libre to which Boluarte once belonged. To remove Boluarte, the move requires 87 votes from the 130-seat unicameral parliament, and so far, five parties that together have 54 votes expressed support for the president following the raid.
Photo: Reuters
Boluarte is being preliminarily investigated for allegedly acquiring an undisclosed collection of luxury watches since becoming vice president and social inclusion minister in July 2021 and then president in December 2022.
Lawmakers in their request to remove her from office cite the investigation against Boluarte as well as countrywide problems, such as rising crime.
She has denied the illicit enrichment accusations.
Late on Friday, armed police officers broke down the front door of Boluarte’s house with a battering ram in search of Rolex watches. The raid marked the first time in Peru’s history that police forcibly entered the home of a sitting president.
The probe began in the middle of last month after a TV show spotlighted Boluarte wearing a Rolex watch worth up to US$14,000 in Peru. Other TV shows later mentioned at least two more Rolexes.
Boluarte, a 61-year-old lawyer, was a modest district official before entering then-Peruvian president Pedro Castillo’s government on a monthly salary of US$8,136 in July 2021. Boluarte later assumed the presidency with a lower salary of US$4,200 per month. Shortly thereafter, she began to display the luxury watches.
She did not list the three watches in an obligatory asset declaration form.
On Monday, Boluarte initially lost three Cabinet members when the ministers of the interior, education and women abruptly resigned.
Victor Torres told reporters his resignation as interior minister was due to a family matter, while the heads of the ministry of women Nancy Tolentino, and of education Miriam Ponce did not offer reasons in the announcements they shared on social media.
Their resignations were followed by the ministers of agriculture, production and foreign trade stepping down.
On announcing his resignation, Torres warned that if Boluarte leaves power “the country will sink.”
Boluarte then swore in six new ministers, including Walter Ortiz, a retired police officer who had previously been director against organized crime, as interior minister. The Cabinet has 18 ministries, in addition to the position of prime minister held by Gustavo Adrianzen.
She also swore in Elizabeth Caldo, a former executive at telecommunications giant Telefonica, as her new foreign trade minister, and Morgan Quero as her education minister.
Malaysia yesterday installed a motorcycle-riding billionaire sultan as its new king in lavish ceremonies for a post seen as a ballast in times of political crises. The coronation ceremony for Malaysia’s King Sultan Ibrahim, 65, at the National Palace in Kuala Lumpur followed his oath-taking in January as the country’s 17th monarch. Malaysia is a constitutional monarchy, with a unique arrangement that sees the throne change hands every five years between the rulers of nine Malaysian states headed by centuries-old Islamic royalty. While chiefly ceremonial, the position of king has in the past few years played an increasingly important role. Royal intervention was
X-37B COMPARISON: China’s spaceplane is most likely testing technology, much like US’ vehicle, said Victoria Samson, an official at the Secure World Foundation China’s shadowy, uncrewed reusable spacecraft, which launches atop a rocket booster and lands at a secretive military airfield, is most likely testing technology, but could also be used for manipulating or retrieving satellites, experts said. The spacecraft, on its third mission, was last month observed releasing an object, moving several kilometers away and then maneuvering back to within a few hundred meters of it. “It’s obvious that it has a military application, including, for example, closely inspecting objects of the enemy or disabling them, but it also has non-military applications,” said Marco Langbroek, a lecturer in optical space situational awareness at Delft
The Philippine Air Force must ramp up pilot training if it is to buy 20 or more multirole fighter jets as it modernizes and expands joint operations with its navy, a commander said yesterday. A day earlier US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that the US “will do what is necessary” to see that the Philippines is able to resupply a ship on the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) that Manila uses to reinforce its claims to the atoll. Sullivan said the US would prefer that the Philippines conducts the resupplies of the small crew on the warship Sierra Madre,
AIRLINES RECOVERING: Two-thirds of the flights canceled on Saturday due to the faulty CrowdStrike update that hit 8.5 million devices worldwide occurred in the US As the world continues to recover from massive business and travel disruptions caused by a faulty software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, malicious actors are trying to exploit the situation for their own gain. Government cybersecurity agencies across the globe and CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz are warning businesses and individuals around the world about new phishing schemes that involve malicious actors posing as CrowdStrike employees or other tech specialists offering to assist those recovering from the outage. “We know that adversaries and bad actors will try to exploit events like this,” Kurtz said in a statement. “I encourage everyone to remain vigilant