Who is Dina Boluarte, the controversial president who will govern Peru?

The left reclaims power in Peru with Dina Boluarte taking over as president of the country, this comes after Pedro Castillo was arrested by the police after perpetrating a coup d'état.

Boluarte, who served as vice president, will now take the reins of a country that in the last five years has been forced to swear in six presidents.

Until Wednesday, December 7, Boluarte was Pedro Castillo's ally; however, the relationship broke down when the now former president decided to dissolve the Congress and decree a state of emergency to avoid vacating his position.

When Castillo declared a "National Emergency Government" and a "nationwide curfew," Boluarte was one of the first to express her "rejection" of the decision.

"I reject Pedro Castillo's decision to perpetrate the breakdown of constitutional order with the closing of Congress. This is a coup d'état that aggravates the political and institutional crisis that Peruvian society will have to overcome with strict adherence to the law," she posted on social networks.

Hours later, Boluarte was sworn in before Congress and swore "by God and by the homeland" to correctly exercise the mandate until its completion in 2026.

A left-wing president

Peru's new president is a 60-year-old lawyer who was until recently minister of Development and Social Inclusion but was under investigation by Congress for an alleged constitutional infraction.

She was a vice-presidential candidate in the 2021 general elections for the Peru Libre party, which was victorious in the runoff against Keiko Fujimori.

One of the scandals surrounding Boluarte dates back to her expulsion from the Peru Libre party due to disagreements with the political organization.

"Internally, I have disagreed with some aspects of Peru Libre's ideology, such as the generalized nationalization of the economy or intervention in the media. However, I have not had the opportunity to debate these views internally," she said in a statement on her social network account.

"Like thousands of Peruvian men and women, I am a leftist, but a democratic leftist, not a totalitarian or sectarian one that allows divergence and criticism and where there are no infallible or untouchable leaders. And I will continue to work for a unity of all leftists, beyond their party options to strengthen us as a valid political option," the document states.

Another controversy surrounding Peru's new president occurred when just a year ago, on December 7, 2021, Boluarte stated that if President Castillo was removed from office, she would resign.

"Who has gone to the press to say that my loyalty to President Pedro Castillo is bulletproof? If the president´s position is vacated, I will go with the president," she said a year ago.

They demand his resignation for moral incapacity

Only minutes after taking office, the NGO Sociedad de la Libertad (SDL) demanded Boluarte' resignation for "lacking the moral capacity to govern."

According to lawyer Rosa María Apaza, president of the SDL, "it is an insult to the citizenship that the corrupt Dina Boluarte representative of the same coup party pretends to govern when she lacks any moral capacity to do so," said Apaza, who urged "honest parliamentarians" to formulate a new vacancy motion.

It remains to be seen what will happen to former president Pedro Castillo who was detained by the Peruvian police after perpetrating the coup d'état, and it also remains to be seen what will become of the new Executive Cabinet that will be formed by Boluarte. She will have to seek the trust of the Congress and withstand a vote of confidence in order to begin her work.