President Dina Boluarte of Peru was swiftly impeached and removed from office by Congress just after midnight on Friday, after a brazen shooting at a cumbia concert and mounting frustration over her failure to curb rampant crime prompted the parties that had long sustained her to withdraw their support.
Lawmakers voted 118-0 to remove Ms. Boluarte — the most unpopular Peruvian president in recent decades — invoking a constitutional clause that permits Congress to declare the presidency vacant on grounds of “permanent moral incapacity.”
Both lawmakers and demonstrators outside the building erupted in cheers.
The president of Congress, José Jerí, is next in line to serve as interim president until the general election scheduled for April 12, unless lawmakers elect a new leader from among themselves.
Ms. Boluarte’s ouster represented a sharp reversal by the right-wing and centrist parties that had effectively governed in coalition with her for the past three years, even as her approval rating plunged as low as 2 to 4 percent, from about 21 percent when her term started.
On Friday Congress approved four motions to impeach her with the support of parties across the ideological spectrum.
Her downfall comes amid widespread outrage over rising crime.
Peru is grappling with a surge in gang-controlled extortion and contract killings, with extortion cases skyrocketing from a few hundred in all of 2017 to more than 2,000 per month this year, according to national police data. Dozens of bus drivers targeted by extortion rings have been killed on the job in the past two years, and several concerts, stores and other small businesses have been attacked with explosives.
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