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LIMA: Peru’s Congress voted early Friday to remove deeply unpopular President Dina Boluarte from office as a crime wave grips the South American nation and quickly replaced her with 38-year-old lawyer José Jerí, the legislative body’s leader.
Lawmakers had set up a debate and impeachment trial late Thursday in the 130-member unicameral Congress after voting to accept four requests for a vote to remove Boluarte from office over what they said was her government’s inability to stem crime.
They requested that Boluarte come before them shortly before midnight to defend herself, but when she did not appear they immediately voted to oust her. In short order, 124 lawmakers voted just past midnight to impeach Boluarte. There were no votes against the effort.
The shocking turn of events came just hours after a shooting at a concert in the capital inflamed anger over crime roiling the country.
Unlike eight previous attempts to remove Boluarte, almost all legislative factions expressed support for the latest requests.
Boluarte, Peru’s first female president, took office in December 2022 after Parliament used the same mechanism to impeach her predecessor.
After Friday’s vote, Boluarte spoke on national television, recounting her administration’s achievements.
“I have not thought of myself, but rather of Peruvians,” she said.
Minutes into her speech, the broadcast was interrupted to show Jerí’s swearing in.
Jerí, the president of the Congress, was sworn in early Friday as the interim president to serve out Boluarte’s term. Elections are scheduled for next April and Boluarte’s term was to end July 28, 2026.
Jerí said he would defend Peru’s sovereignty and hand over power to the winner of the April election.
Boluarte was Peru’s sixth leader in just under a decade. A normal presidential term is five years.
She assumed power in Peru in 2022 to complete the term of then-President Pedro Castillo, who was removed from office just two years into his five-year term after attempting to dissolve the legislature to avoid his own removal. She had served as Castillo’s vice president before becoming president.
There were more than 500 protests demanding her resignation in the first three months of her presidency.
Plagued by scandals, her administration’s inability to address Peru’s incessant crime proved to be her undoing.
On Wednesday, she partially blamed the situation on immigrants living in the country illegally.
“This crime has been brewing for decades and has been strengthened by illegal immigration, which past administrations haven’t defeated,” she said during a military ceremony. “Instead, they’ve opened the doors of our borders and allowed criminals to enter everywhere... without any restrictions.”
Official figures show that 6,041 people were killed between January and mid-August, the highest number during the same period since 2017. Meanwhile, extortion complaints totaled 15,989 between January and July, a 28 percent increase compared to the same period in 2024.
The country’s latest presidential crisis erupted after a man opened fire and injured five people Wednesday during a concert of Peru’s most popular cumbia groups, Agua Marina.
Prime Minister Eduardo Arana on Thursday defended Boluarte during a crime-focused hearing before Parliament, but it was not enough to dissuade lawmakers from pursuing the motions to see the president out of office.
“Parliament’s concerns are not resolved by addressing a request for impeachment, much less by approving it,” Arana told lawmakers. “We are not clinging to our positions. We are here, and we knew from the beginning that our first day here could also be our last day in office.”

JAKARTA: Indonesia has denied visas to Israeli gymnasts, costing them a spot in a world championship in Jakarta this month, a sports official in the Southeast Asian nation said on Friday, amid outcry over Israel’s military offensive in Gaza.
The Israeli team was set to participate in the World Artistic Gymnastics championship from October 19 to 25 in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority country, which has no formal diplomatic ties with Israel.
“They are confirmed to not be attending,” Ita Juliati, the chief of the Indonesian gymnastics federation, told reporters.
The Israel Gymnastics Federation did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
Indonesia decided not to issue visas to the Israeli athletes, senior legal affairs minister Yusril Ihza Mahendra said, citing objections from groups such as a council of Islamic clerics and the government in Jakarta, the capital.
The decision is in line with Indonesia’s policy of having no ties with Israel until it recognizes “the independence and full sovereignty of the state of Palestine,” Yusril added in a statement on Friday.
The most recent Israeli campaign in Gaza, which began in October 2023 over an attack by Hamas and has killed more than 67,000 Palestinians, according to health authorities in the enclave, has drawn criticism from Indonesia.
Israel launched the assault after Hamas-led militants stormed through Israeli towns and a music festival, killing 1,200 people and capturing 251 hostages.
A recent Instagram post from the Indonesian gymnastics federation drew hundreds of pro-Palestinian comments from domestic users, days after an Israeli association said it would attend the Jakarta event.
Under the government of President Prabowo Subianto, Indonesia has softened its Israel stance slightly.
The world must have an independent Palestine, but also recognize and guarantee the safety and security of Israel, Prabowo told last month’s session of the United Nations General Assembly.
It is not the first sports-related dispute between the two countries.
In March 2023, FIFA dropped Indonesia as host of the Under-20 World Cup, citing failure to honor its commitments, after a regional governor refused to host the Israeli team.
Last month, UN experts called for FIFA and the Union of European Football to suspend Israel as a country team from international football, as “a necessary response to address the ongoing genocide in the occupied Palestinian territory.”
Israel has dismissed accusations of genocide.