{"id":303546,"date":"2026-02-18T02:50:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T02:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/303546\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T02:50:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T02:50:08","slug":"perus-president-ousted-in-express-impeachment-after-just-four-months-in-office-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/303546\/","title":{"rendered":"Peru\u2019s president ousted in \u2018express impeachment\u2019 after just four months in office \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Peru<\/a>\u2019s interim president has been forced out of office in an \u201cexpress impeachment\u201d after a political scandal over his secretive meetings with Chinese<\/a> businessmen.<\/p>\n

Lawmakers voted by 75 votes to 24 to proceed with the impeachment of Jos\u00e9 Jer\u00ed, who had been at the helm for just four months. <\/p>\n

He had become embroiled in a scandal dubbed \u201cChifagate\u201d after security-camera footage emerged showing him in clandestine meetings with Chinese businessmen outside of his official agenda, including one visit in which he appears to try to conceal his identity with a hooded top.<\/p>\n

Jer\u00ed (39) was Peru\u2019s seventh president in a decade amid oustings, resignations and interim terms, in an unprecedented period of political instability. <\/p>\n

The acting speaker of Peru\u2019s congress, Fernando Rospigliosi, said lawmakers would vote on Wednesday to decide who would replace Jer\u00ed just months before the country\u2019s presidential elections in April.<\/p>\n

Jer\u00ed was initially popular but his approval rating collapsed amid the Chifagate controversy and other scandals. <\/p>\n

Political parties that had backed him began to call for him to quit, seeking to distance themselves as election campaigning got under way.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors have opened a preliminary investigation into alleged influence-peddling linked to the meetings with Yang Zhizua, known as \u201cJohnny\u201d, a well-connected Chinese businessman who has lived in Peru for decades. <\/p>\n

Prosecutors say another Chinese citizen, Ji Wu Xiaodong, who was present at one of the meetings, is accused of belonging to an illegal timber-trafficking network known as Los Hostiles de la Amazonia and had been placed under house arrest for two years.<\/p>\n

Jer\u00ed also faces scrutiny for allegedly hiring unqualified young women who secured government jobs after late-night meetings at the presidential palace, based on its official entry-and-exit log. <\/p>\n

Several of them had also accompanied Jer\u00ed on multiple official trips on the presidential plane. Jer\u00ed has denied wrongdoing and said the appointments were legal.<\/p>\n

The shake-up at the top of Peruvian politics comes amid a tit-for-tat row between the US Trump administration\u2019s newly appointed ambassador to Peru, Bernardo Navarro, and China.<\/p>\n

Navarro, who began his diplomatic duties in Peru this month, lambasted \u201ccheap Chinese money\u201d in a post on X \u2013 adding that there was \u201cno higher price to pay than losing sovereignty\u201d, in what appeared to be a pointed reference to the port of Chancay, which is majority-owned by the Chinese firm Cosco Shipping Ports. <\/p>\n

The fully automated port is located about 80km north of Lima. Previously, US officials have suggested that the deepwater port could be used for naval activities, which Peru has denied.<\/p>\n

In response, China\u2019s foreign ministry decried what it called the US\u2019s \u201cfalse accusations and disinformation against China\u2019s co-operation with Peru\u201d concerning Chancay port. \u2013 Guardian<\/p>\n

Keen to deflect the US\u2019s diplomatic broadside, Peru\u2019s foreign ministry posted a photograph on X of its minister shaking hands with China\u2019s ambassador to Peru, Song Yang, to mark the lunar new year and praising Chinese investments and bilateral trade relations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Peru\u2019s interim president has been forced out of office in an \u201cexpress impeachment\u201d after a political scandal over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":303547,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[114,42,43,24787,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-303546","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-china","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-peru","12":"tag-top-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topnews","15":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303546\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}