Dina Boluarte was sworn in on Wednesday as the new president of Peru, thus becoming the first in the country’s history, since as vice-president, as required by the Constitution, she had to take office following the dismissal of Pedro Castillo by Congress.
«I swear by God, by the homeland and by all Peruvians that I will faithfully exercise the office of President of the Republic, which I assume in accordance with the Constitution, from this moment until July 26, 2026», she said after receiving the presidential sash from the hands of the President of Congress, José Williams Zapata.
«I will defend national sovereignty, the physical and moral integrity of the republic and the independence of democratic institutions. I will comply with the Constitution and the laws of Peru, recognizing the freedom of worship and the moral formation of Peruvians», said Boluarte with his hand on the Bible.
«This difficult conjuncture puts all of us citizens on trial. Before being a politician, I am a citizen and a Peruvian mother who is fully aware of the responsibility that history places on my shoulders,» she said later in her first speech as president of Peru.
«There has been an attempted coup d’état, an imprint promoted by Mr. Pedro Castillo, which has not found an echo in the institutions of democracy and the street. This Congress, in accordance with the constitutional mandate, has made a decision and it is my duty to act accordingly», she stressed.
In her first speech before Congress as president, Boluarte called for «the unity of all Peruvians», earning applause from the floor. «It is up to us to talk, to dialogue, to reach an agreement, something so simple, but so impracticable in recent months,» she lamented.
«I call for a broad process of dialogue among all the political forces represented or not in Congress», said Boluarte, who asked for a «political truce to install a government of national unity» and «the support of the Public Prosecutor’s Office to enter into the structures corrupted by the mafias».
Although during the last months Boluarte said that in case Castillo was dismissed by the Congress, she would go with him, the last actions of the already ex-president have made her change her mind and from the first moment she has been categorically against what she has defined as «a coup d’état».
Boluarte had combined her position as Vice President of Peru with that of Minister of Social Development until November of this year when Betssy Chávez was elected as the new Prime Minister.
Now she will have to deal with a Congress in which she does not have a bench and hardly any parliamentary allies to support her, after she recently left Peru Libre, and which for two decades has shown itself to be an ungovernable and hostile space towards all presidents.
