Peru president ousted after bid to dissolve Congress

Peru's leftist leader Pedro Castillo was impeached and replaced as president on Wednesday in a dizzying series of events in the country that has long been prone to political upheaval.

Dina Boluarte, a 60-year-old lawyer, was sworn in as Peru's first female president just hours after Castillo tried to wrest control of the legislature in a move criticised as an attempted coup.

The day of high drama began with Castillo facing his third impeachment attempt since the former rural school teacher unexpectedly took power from Peru's traditional political elite 18 months ago.

In a televised address to the nation, the 53-year-old announced that he was dissolving the opposition-dominated Congress, installing a curfew, and would rule by decree.

As criticism poured in over the address, lawmakers defiantly gathered earlier than planned to debate the impeachment motion and approved it, with 101 votes out of a total of 130 lawmakers.

Castillo was impeached for his "moral incapacity" to exercise power, after a litany of crises including six investigations against him, five cabinet reshuffles and large protests.

The constitutional provision allows impeachment proceedings to be brought against a president based on the subjective premise of political rather than legal wrongdoing, and has made impeachments commonplace in Peru.

Castillo became the third president since 2018 to be sacked under the "moral incapacity" provision in the constitution.

Within two hours, Boluarte took the oath of office in front of Congress to serve out the rest of Castillo's term, until July 2026.

Peru is no stranger to political instability: it had three different presidents in five days in 2020, and is now on its sixth president since 2016.

After the impeachment vote, Castillo left the presidential palace with a bodyguard, heading to the Lima police headquarters where he remained.

Images released by the Peruvian prosecutor's office showed Castillo in a room surrounded by prosecutors and police, without clarifying his legal situation.

His supporters criticised their leader's ousting.

"I want to denounce the fact that our president has been kidnapped by the national police, that he has been detained with premeditation and treachery by Congress," said retired soldier Manuel Gaviria, 59,

Castillo came out of seemingly nowhere to win 50.12 percent of votes in a June 2021 runoff election against rightwing Keiko Fujimori, the corruption-charged daughter of graft-convicted ex-president Alberto Fujimori.

He was born in a tiny village where he worked as a teacher for 24 years, and was largely unknown until he led a national strike in 2017 that forced the then-government to agree to pay rise demands.

Castillo sought to portray himself as a humble servant of the people, traveling on horseback for much of his presidential campaign, and promising to end to corruption.

However allegations against him quickly flooded in.

The investigations he is facing range from alleged graft and obstruction of justice to plagiarizing his university thesis.

In addition to these, in October Peru's attorney general filed a constitutional complaint accusing Castillo of heading a criminal organization involving his family and allies.

Castillo and his lawyers long argued the investigations against him were part of a plot to unseat him.

"This intolerable situation cannot continue," he said earlier Wednesday as he announced he would convene a new Congress to draft a new constitution within nine months.

Hundreds of protesters gathered in front of Congress ahead of the vote.

"We are tired of this corrupt government that was stealing from day one," said 51-year-old Johana Salazar.

Ricardo Palomino, 50, a systems engineer, said Castillo's attempt to dissolve parliament was "totally unacceptable and unconstitutional. It went against everything and these are the consequences."

Ahead of the impeachment, the United States demanded Castillo "reverse his decision", before saying it no longer considered him to be the president.

"My understanding is that, given the action of the Congress, he is now former president Castillo," State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters, saying lawmakers took "corrective action" in line with democratic rules.

Castillo's failed effort to fend off the impeachment bid comes more than 30 years after then-president Alberto Fujimori suspended the constitution and dissolved Congress in April 1992.

"Peru wants to live in a democracy. This coup d'etat has no legal basis," the president of the Constitutional Court, Francisco Morales, said of Castillo's actions.