Peru Congress Censures and Removes Interim President José Jerí

The Peruvian Congress censured and removed from office the interim president, José Jerí. This decision came less than two months before the presidential and legislative elections scheduled for April 12, following a buildup of motions by parliamentary blocs that, until weeks ago, had tolerated the transition scheme born after the departure of Dina Boluarte. The vote was held in an extraordinary session with a resounding result: of 116 congressmen present, 75 supported the censure, 24 voted against it, and there were three abstentions. Jerí entered Congress in 2021 as an alternate for the disqualified former president Martín Vizcarra, with a relatively low vote count, and in a few months went from being a substitute legislator to leadership positions, eventually becoming president of Congress and then head of state after Boluarte's removal last October. The Congress interpreted that a norm issued by the Parliament itself allows for a removal by censure in these scenarios, as the head of state interim remains president of Congress, which relocates the procedural key to the parliamentary logic. The session was held in an atypical framework: with Congress in recess and its main headquarters conditioned by works, lawmakers had to meet in an improvised manner in an auditorium in downtown Lima, after gathering enough signatures to convene the plenary with a single agenda focused on the motions against the president. Whoever is elected president of Congress will automatically assume as interim president of the Republic until July 28, 2026, when the winner of the ongoing elections must take office. The rise and fall of Jerí condense the speed of the Peruvian political cycle. With this number, Parliament reached the simple majority required for censure, a mechanism that, in this case, ended up cutting the transition mandate ahead of the scheduled schedule and immediately opened the internal race to designate new legislative authorities, which also implies appointing the new provisional president of the country. Jerí's fall, a 39-year-old lawyer, was precipitated by a combination of political scandals, complaints, and signs of isolation within Congress itself. With the censure consummated, Parliament must elect new authorities this Wednesday. Prior to his removal, he stated that he had 'full moral sufficiency' to exercise the presidency and defended that, by constitutional mandate, his removal should require a qualified majority. His career also includes controversial precedents: the filing of a complaint for rape attributed to late 2024 and accusations of illicit enrichment for allegedly requesting money in exchange for promoting projects in the Budget Commission, allegations that he denies and that his opponents wielded as part of a pattern. With the April 12 election on the horizon, the removal adds uncertainty to a country that cannot stabilize its system of government. During the debate, the 'Somos Perú' bloc, through its spokesperson Ana Zegarra, attempted to halt the process with a point of order: she argued that, being the president of the Republic, his exit should be framed as a 'vacancy' and not as a censure. The opposition and sectors that distanced themselves from the transitional government maintain that the succession of appointments of officials who would have held prior meetings with Jerí at the Government Palace fueled suspicions of favoritism and the building of power networks, while his popularity fell and conservative blocs—the majority in the hemicycle—began to distance themselves to avoid bearing the political cost weeks before the elections. The motions against Jerí accumulated up to seven. The most relevant political fact was the withdrawal of forces that had initially supported his assumption: explicit support was concentrated almost exclusively in the fujimorism of 'Fuerza Popular', the largest bloc, which remained the main support even with ongoing fiscal investigations. Among the facts presented in the debate was his appearance disguised on December 26 in a restaurant linked to a Chinese contractor, as well as a subsequent visit on January 6 to one of his stores, in a particularly sensitive context: the establishment had been closed by municipal authorities a few hours earlier. To this picture were added journalistic revelations about alleged irregularities in state contracting during his brief tenure. In recent weeks, his behavior as head of state came under scrutiny, and the Prosecutor's Office opened investigations for alleged influence trafficking. However, the position did not prosper and was clearly accompanied only by 'Fuerza Popular'. Jerí rejected the accusations and assured that he had not committed crimes. The new interim that arises from Congress will have, from day one, a double challenge: to sustain the daily administration in the midst of a crisis of legitimacy and to guarantee a credible electoral process in an increasingly polarized social and political climate. The episode that triggered the crisis included reports on unreported meetings with Chinese businessmen linked to state contracts. The proposal sought to raise the threshold of votes: for censure, a half of those present was enough, while for a vacancy, 87 votes were required.