MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

New Peruvian President appoints leftist congressman Guido Bellido as PM

The Cusco-born Bellido is an electronics engineer by trade

Peru's President Pedro Castillo Thursday appointed Congressman Guido Bellido Ugarte of his Peru Libre leftwing party to become the country's new Prime Minister, while the remaining members of the cabinet are still due to take office.

“For the more than 30 million Peruvians, for the fight against corruption, for the work for the Peruvian people, yes I swear!,” said Bellido at the swearing-in ceremony before the head of state.

Castillo took office on July 28 in a ceremony in Lima, as Peru celebrated 200 years of independence, while Bellido's appointment was held in the department of Ayacucho.

Bellido Ugarte, 42, a native of the department of Cusco (south) is an electronic engineer by profession and has worked as a civil servant at the National Institute of Statistics and Informatics. He was elected for the period 2021-2026 as a congressman representing Cusco.

According to the Presidency, the appointment and swearing-in of the other members of cabinet is scheduled for July 30.

In his first message to the Nation, Castillo gave all foreign criminals 72 hours to leave the country

Castillo Terrones who himself has a background as a rondero (vigilante groups created within society in the 1980s as a defense against the Shining Path guerrillas) insisted that the police's fight against crime was not engough and called for an extension of the peasant ring system in Peru. “This is nothing other than the organized population to give security to everyone ... We call on everyone to form them where they do not exist,” said the president.

Meanwhile, opposition leader Keiko Fujimori, who lost the presidential runoff to Castillo by some 44,200 votes, has vowed that her political allies would be “a contention wall in the face of his threat of a new Constitution.“

However, Fujimori also wrote in her Twitter account that her Fuerza Popular party would support ”any initiative“ aimed at ”improving the quality of life of the population because the education, health and well-being of all Peruvians is above our differences.”

But the conservative politician has also vowed to stand up against Castillo's “latent threat of a new communist Constitution and structural changes in the foundations of our development.”

Castillo has insisted on the need to provide the country with a new Magna Carta through a Constituent Assembly.

Meanwhile, criminal charges for genocide have been filed against former interim President Francisco Sagasti due to the covid-19 deaths during his eight-month tenure. Filing the accusations was former Congressman César Gonzales Tuanama.