Peru’s New Interim President Brings Old Cases Back to Life

Peru has a new interim president, and what surprises people is not his age but the controversies he brings. José María Balcázar comes supported by unexpected allies and surrounded by accusations he calls smears, as elections approach in April and public patience wears thin. He has already been summoned to appear as a defendant in a trial in which he is accused of allegedly misappropriating funds from the Bar Association, where he served as dean.

A Surprise Vote, Then a Familiar Argument

Peru’s new interim president, leftist José María Balcázar, is due to appear in court as a defendant in a case alleging he improperly took funds from the Bar Association he once led as dean. The Superior Court of Justice of Lambayeque on Peru’s northern coast said Friday that the trial has been on the calendar since last year for June sixteen, when he is expected to be still running the transitional government.

When Peru’s Congress chose José María Balcázar, the mood changed as it often does in a chamber used to last-minute decisions: another vote, another interim leader. On Wednesday, Peru named its eighth president in almost ten years, selecting the leftist Balcázar to lead the transition toward the April elections.

Balcázar is eighty-three, a lawyer, and now holds power in a country where leadership has been short-lived, whether by design or crisis. He didn’t come alone. The Marxist Peru Libre party, which helped Pedro Castillo win the presidency in 2021, backed him. He also gained support from several right-wing parties after agreeing to share the transitional government following the removal of José Jerí, a conservative lawmaker who served only four months.

Jerí was removed less than two months before the general elections, following investigations into influence peddling. That explains why Congress chose Balcázar. But the bigger question is why he was the candidate they could all agree on. The problem is that Balcázar is mired in controversy and accusations—up to 13 alleged offenses, including prevarication, fraud, and scams. He calls these claims “defamation” and “old stories” and says they have all been dismissed.

It is a familiar kind of insistence in a familiar kind of week. Peru has lived through resignations, removals, and failed gambits so often that the sequence can sound like a civic mantra. Pedro Pablo Kuczynski won in two thousand sixteen and resigned in two thousand eighteen. Martín Vizcarra replaced him and was removed in 2020 during the COVID pandemic after corruption allegations surfaced tied to his earlier time as regional governor. Manuel Merino stepped in and lasted five days amid protests, and two young people were killed by shots presumed to be from police. Francisco Sagasti led a transition to the 2021 election, which Castillo won. Then Castillo faced repeated removal motions and attempted a failed self-coup on December seven, two thousand twenty-two. Dina Boluarte, his vice president, lasted the longest in this stretch, until Congress removed her as elections approached, with her presidency shadowed by more than fifty deaths in the repression of protests, secret cosmetic surgeries, and luxury watches displayed as gifts from other politicians. Jerí followed, then fell.

Now Balcázar steps into a role that is neither a full mandate nor just a caretaker position.

The Past That Will Not Stay Filed Away

Before becoming interim president, Balcázar kept a mostly low profile in Congress, which could be seen as discipline or simply going unnoticed. But he broke that silence in a way that still shocks, even in a region used to blunt politics. He openly defended child marriage and sexual relationships with minors, including those between teachers and students, as long as there was no violence. He argued that early sexual relationships might benefit a girl’s psychological future.

In the legislature, he was one of three lawmakers who abstained from voting on a ban on marriages involving minors. After becoming interim leader, he confirmed his position in a Thursday interview, framing it as a matter of conviction, not provocation. “I am a man permanently firm in my convictions, and what I say, I say with authority,” he told EFE.

That statement sounds like someone speaking as if politics were a courtroom. But Peru is not just picking a stance. It is choosing a transitional head of state whose public record now shapes the country’s debate about what is acceptable.

His professional history is key to this debate. Balcázar was once part of the Bar Association of Lambayeque, a northern region where he became dean. He was later expelled amid accusations of misusing the institution’s funds, changing account ownership in several financial entities, facing lawsuits, and defrauding the legal body itself. Before the congressional vote, the association issued a statement warning that his behavior continues to seriously harm the professional group and urging that he not be chosen to lead the transitional government.

He also served as a provisional justice on Peru’s Supreme Court. In 2004, from the Permanent Civil Chamber, he changed a ruling that had already been finalized and could not be appealed. This incident worked against his reappointment in 2011. Earlier, in 2006, the National Council of the Magistracy removed him. Local media have also reported other accusations of misconduct from his time as a judge in Chiclayo before he entered politics.

A Transition Built on Pacts and Pressure

None of this is a conviction in the text as presented. It is a catalog of allegations, disciplinary actions, and institutional war. None of this means he has been convicted. It is a list of allegations, disciplinary actions, and warnings from institutions. The risk is that in Peru, where political trust is already fragile, an interim president cannot just ignore such a list as if it were a minor detail of alleged exchanges of favors with former attorney general Patricia Benavides. Benavides is under investigation for allegedly leading a corruption network from the prosecutor’s office to gain and keep her position by shelving investigations involving numerous lawmakers.

In Balcázar’s case, the allegation is that he supposedly agreed to back Benavides in the prosecutor’s office in return for judicial help in processes open against him. Questions also surfaced about the appointment of his daughter-in-law as a prosecutor after what appeared to be a meeting with Benavides’s advisers.

This is the reality of Peru’s current transition: deals made under pressure, investigations still unresolved, and institutions expected to act as referees even though they are part of the conflict.

Balcázar’s rise also carries a political message that won’t be ignored. He is part of Peru Libre, the party that helped Castillo win power. Just days before his election, he suggested the possibility of pardoning Castillo. In a country still grappling with the fallout from Castillo’s failed attempt to shut down Congress and interfere with the judiciary, even mentioning that possibility feels significant.

Peru’s interim leaders are meant to be bridges, not final stops. But lately, those bridges have been made from fragile materials: shaky congressional coalitions, ongoing legal battles, and public anger that never fades. Balcázar steps into this, insisting the old cases are closed. But the country, given its recent history of presidents, might not be convinced.

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