José María Balcázar He is the new president of Congress and, by constitutional mandate, of the Republic of Peru, instead of the censored one José Jerí. By majority vote, Parliament elected him as the transitional leader until July 2026.
Balcázar will take over the reins of the country after defeating his opponents in the vote Edgar Reymundo, Hector Acuna already Maria del Carmen Alva in second round.
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In the first round, Balcázar got 46 votes; His list was the one that received the most support, ahead of Alva’s (43). In the other election, he obtained 64 votes over the 46 of the Popular Action congresswoman.
The now President of the Republic has promised to pardon the convicted Pedro Castillo, who is serving an 11-year prison sentence for the attempted coup d’état in December 2022.
Questions to José Balcázar
José María Balcázar, former magistrate and provisional supreme member of the Supreme Court, was elected congressman in 2021 for the Lambayeque region, representing the Perú Libre party.
In June 2023, during the debate in the Justice Commission on the prohibition of child marriage, Balcázar stated that sexual relations at an early age “help the psychological future of women”, as long as there is no violence.
According to his perspective, marriage has become “dysfunctional” and prohibiting these unions does not solve the problem of teenage pregnancies, which he attributes more to the lack of sexual education than to the legal structure of marriage.
“In large cities, de facto unions are early, sexual relations are early, and legal medicine knows perfectly well that, as long as there is no violence, early sexual relations rather help the psychological future of the woman. The problem is how to prohibit pregnancy; there is a lack of sexual education there. But marriage is dysfunctional, what do we do with people who already have children and who are living together without violence while being under 18 years old?”, he expressed.
On February 17, when asked about his statements after presenting his candidacy, Balcázar did not rectify his statements and stated that he has nothing to regret.
According to him, his words were taken out of context.
On the other hand, a few hours before the election of the new president, the illustrious Lambayeque Bar Association issued a statement titled: “Why Congressman José María Balcázar cannot and should not be elected as president of Congress.”
The CAL mentioned that Balcázar’s candidacy has caused them “deep concern, indignation, discomfort, pain and sadness.” “We categorically reject the possibility that, even on an interim basis, someone who has caused and continues to cause, with his misconduct, serious harm to his own professional association is chosen from among 130 people,” the statement says.
According to the CAL, the president was charged with ethical, civil and criminal charges, such as the appropriation of funds from the institution, change of ownership in his accounts in different financial entities, complaints, defrauding a legal entity, etc. All of this, according to the CAL, when Balcázar was dean of the institution.
For these reasons, it was decided to expel him from the institution. Likewise, the CAL indicated that there are criminal complaints against the president and that they cannot yet be resolved due to his congressional inauguration.
