MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

A Lady for Peru.

The first woman Primer Minister in the history of Peru was sworn in by President Alejandro Toledo ending a week long political crisis.

Beatriz Merino, a tax lawyer with graduate degrees in Harvard University and the London School of Economics and much respected in Peru will be leading the cabinet in an uphill task to restore confidence in a government that has undergone its third overhaul since taking office just two years ago.

The incoming cabinet includes six new members while the other ten belong to the previous team including the Foreign Affairs and the Economy Ministers. The previous cabinet resigned when Congress refused to back Mr. Toledo's new tax plans.

When swearing in his ministers, president Toledo said that "this act is only the beginning of a turning point for my government, a relaunching of my government".

However, limited Congressional support plus political and economic turmoil in Peru have seen President Toledo's popularity crash to just 11% and in this last crisis it took him almost a week to find a new Prime Minister.

Peru is a country where more than half the population live in poverty and which in the eighties and nineties experienced one of the cruellest terrorist movements, the Mao oriented guerrillas of the Shinning Path that left thousands killed and caused terrible damage to the economy and suffering to the population.

They were finally and brutally defeated by former authoritarian president Alberto Fujimori in alliance with the Army accused of indiscriminate human rights violations.

Mr. Fujimori twice elected, when his third attempt failed finally fled the country and is living in exile in Japan.

However Shinning Path seems to have re-emerged, both in the jungle where they apparently were involved in a massive kidnapping of an oil camp and in the Andes where they set fire to several public transport buses.

President Toledo has promised he will fight the terrorists to the bitter end and has named a silk gloved lady and conciliatory politician to manage the country.

No wonder Mr. Fujimori in Japan is promising he will return to reinstate order and respect.