By John Ikani
Dina Boluarte became Peru’s first female president on Wednesday amid a political maelstrom when her predecessor and former boss Pedro Castillo was ousted in an impeachment trial and detained by police after he tried to illegally shut down Congress.
Boluarte was virtually unknown on the Peruvian political scene a year and a half ago, when she rode into office in July 2021 as Pedro Castillo’s vice president.
The 60-year-old lawyer and mother became one of the Castillo government’s best-known faces due to her position as Minister of Development and Social Inclusion, a post she held simultaneously with the vice presidency up until two weeks ago.
Her political career is short, having run for office for the first time four years ago when she tried to run for the post of mayor of the district of Surquillo in Lima.
In 2020, she unsuccessfully ran for Congress for the left-wing Peru Libre party.
A year later, she became Castillo’s vice-presidential running mate and the duo went on to win the election.
In a sign of a growing split between her and Mr Castillo, she resigned from her ministerial post two weeks ago citing disappointment with his choice of prime minister.
Boluarte did remain in her post of vice-president but minutes after his shock announcement that he was dissolving Congress, she broke with her former ally for good.
She took to Twitter, where she denounced his move as “a coup d’etat which deepens the political crisis”.
With Congress quickly moving to impeach Castillo, Boluarte was summoned to the building to take the oath of office as president.
In her acceptance speech, she called for “a political truce to install a government of national unity”.
“I ask for time, valuable time to rescue the country from corruption and misrule,” She added.
