On 6 August, Peru’s President Martín Vizcarra appointed Walter Martos as his new prime minister.
Analysis:
Martos becomes Peru’s third prime minister in less than a month, after Pedro Cateriano was forced to resign, along with the entire cabinet of ministers, after the country’s congress denied the cabinet (only appointed on 15 July) an inaugural vote of confidence on 4 August. While 15 out of 19 ministers were yesterday reappointed by Vizcarra, Martos will nonetheless have to submit the cabinet to another confidence vote. Under normal circumstances, a second rejection would allow Vizcarra to dissolve congress, but this is constitutionally prohibited in the final year of the legislature’s term; the pressure is therefore on Vizcarra and Martos to appease congress, despite only minimal changes to the rejected cabinet, to avoid launching a constitutional crisis in the midst of the country’s economic and health emergencies.
- Martos, a retired army general, had served as defence minister since October 2019, following the dissolution of the previous congress. President of congress Manuel Merino responded positively to this appointment, saying “we promise a co-ordinated and efficient effort to move the country forward”.
- The appointment of Javier Palacios as labour minister was also well-received, after his 32-year-old predecessor Martín Ruggiero was widely held to be too inexperienced for the role. More controversial will be the reinstatement of economy minister María Antonieta Alva and education minister Martín Benavides, both facing the threat of a vote of censure from congress.
- With only limited ministerial changes, the success of this cabinet will therefore depend on whether Martos’ vision for the government’s final year in office can prove more convincing than Cateriano’s, which was criticised for paying insufficient attention to addressing the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, and focusing excessively on the role of mining and the private sector in the country’s economic recovery.
Looking Ahead: The early signs, however, suggest that the executive is still reluctant to compromise; Martos’ first contribution as prime minister was to rule out a return to stricter quarantine measures, citing the urgent need for economic reactivation, while Vizcarra was once again highly critical of congress, calling on legislators to “leave behind disputes that do not contribute to the well-being of the country".