Two right-wing and two left-wing lawmakers have presented their candidacies to preside over Peru. Right-wing lawmakers María del Carmen Alva and Héctor Acuña, and left-wingers Edgar Reymundo and José Balcázar submitted their candidacies to assume the Presidency of Congress, and consequently, the head of state of Peru after the removal of right-wing José Jerí from both positions. The candidacies were officially formalized in separate documents sent before the deadline to the chief clerk of Congress, Giovanni Forno. The candidacy of Alva, who had already presided over Congress in the 2021-2022 period, was presented by the parliamentary spokesman for the right-wing party Acción Popular (AP), Edwin Martínez. Alva is a 58-year-old lawyer who is a member of AP, a party that has held the Peruvian presidency three times, with its founder Fernando Belaúnde in the periods 1963-1968 and 1980-1985, and parliamentarian Valentín Paniagua at the head of the transitional government, between 2000 and 2001, after the resignation of Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000). The candidacy of Acuña, 68 years old and brother of the businessman and current presidential candidate César Acuña, was presented by the spokesman for the ultraconservative Honor and Democracy bloc, Jorge Montoya. Acuña is a civil engineer and businessman who entered Congress as a representative of his brother's right-wing party, Alianza Para el Progreso (APP), although he later distanced himself due to disagreements and went through several blocs until joining Honor and Democracy, which is largely composed of retired high-ranking military officers. The candidacy of Reymundo, a 73-year-old sociologist, was presented by the legislative spokeswoman for the left-wing Democratic Popular Bloc, Ruth Luque. Reymundo was mayor in the 1980s of the Chilca district, in the central Andean region of Huancayo, for the United Left alliance, and also a congressman in the 2006-2011 period for the centrist Union for Peru, before returning to the current parliament for the left-wing Together for Peru party. The candidacy of Balcázar, an 83-year-old lawyer, was presented by the spokesman for the Marxist party Peru Libre, Flavio Cruz. Balcázar, who was a magistrate and a member of Peru's Supreme Court of Justice, came to Congress as a representative of Peru Libre, the party that won the Peruvian presidency in 2021 with candidate Pedro Castillo, who was later removed and is currently serving a sentence for his failed coup attempt at the end of 2022. The Congress of Peru will choose a new interim president of the country in an extraordinary plenary session, after this Tuesday censured Jerí for semi-clandestine meetings with Chinese businessmen and alleged irregularities in the hiring of officials who had previously met with him at the Government Palace. Jerí had been serving as President of Peru since last October in his capacity as President of Congress following the removal of Dina Boluarte (2022-2025), so his successor will have to lead the Executive on an interim basis until handing over power on July 28 to the winner of the presidential elections, scheduled for April 12.
