MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Peru's President once again needs to reshuffle cabinet following resignations

“The cabinet is constantly being evaluated,” Castillo argued.

Peruvian President Pedro Castillo has been dealt a new blow less than a year after being sworn in following the resignation Monday of Prime Minister Mirtha Vásquez citing high levels of corruption within the national government.

Castillo won the runoff June 6 as the candidate of the leftist Peru Libre against right-wing candidate Keiko Fujimori and took his oath of office July 28. He announced his third cabinet reshuffle Monday.

“As I have always announced in my interventions, the cabinet is constantly being evaluated. For this reason, I have decided to renew it and form a new team,” Castillo said. After Vásquez's departure, Castillo also said “we will continue along the path of development for the good of the country,” but did not specify whether he would appoint a totally new cabinet or just replace Vásquez and a few other ministers.

Vásquez, a moderate leader from within the ruling coalition's Broad Front, had taken over Presidency of the Council of Ministers Oct. 6 to replace Guido Bellido of the radical leftwing Peru Libre party of Marxist-Leninist ideas.

The outgoing Cabinet Chief wrote on Twitter Monday that she was resigning “due to the impossibility of achieving consensus for the benefit of the country.”

The new replacement comes after Castillo accepted the resignation of Interior Minister Avelino Guillén, who resigned Friday after saying he did not feel the President's support in a row with the Chief of Police, whom he wanted replaced. Guillén had also asked Castillo to start “listening” and asked him to change his most direct presidential advisers who were permanently at war “between them.”

Vasquez sided with the interior minister. “We have reached a critical moment. The crisis in the Ministry of the Interior (...) is the expression of a temporary problem of corruption in various instances of the State that has been hitting us and that it is time to address and confront firmly. At this time, doubts or indecisions are inadmissible”, she pointed out.

Castillo's future is becoming increasingly blurry. He already survived a Congressional motion of censure sought by Fujimorism on the alleged grounds of “moral incapacity,” a figure which in recent years has been effectively used to depose Presidents Pedro Pablo Kucyynski and Martín Vizcarra.