Lima.- Peru’s interim president, José María Balcázar, requested that his country’s Congress grant him a lifetime pension at the end of his term, which will conclude on July 28 with the transfer of power to the right-wing president-elect, Keiko Fujimori, who won the second round of the Peruvian elections last June.
Balcázar sent a request to Parliament to ask for the “recognition and granting of a lifetime pension” that is given to former presidents in accordance with what is determined in the Peruvian Constitution and the Law of General Administrative Procedure, as indicated in the document released this Tuesday by local media.
The current ruler, who is also a congressman for the Marxist party Peru Libre, remarked that he made his request “by virtue of having exercised the head of state position through the mechanisms of succession and constitutional charge starting in February 2026“.
“Having completed said mandate and being close to the definitive cessation of my active public functions, it is appropriate to regularize my pension status in accordance with the rank of the dignity of the office held,” he remarked.
However, local media recalled that the Congressional Constitution Commission pointed out in 2022 that the lifetime pension for former heads of state should not be understood “broadly for anyone who has held the Presidency of the Republic, but for presidents who were elected by the people to hold said office and provided they have remained for the entire constitutional term,” which in Peru is five years.
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Peru has had eight rulers in the last decade, amidst a period of permanent political turmoil that has led to the removal or resignation of heads of state due to pressure from Congress.
Balcázar assumed the Peruvian Presidency on February 18, replacing the right-wing José Jerí, who was dismissed a day earlier by Parliament due to criticized secret meetings with Chinese businessmen and alleged irregular hiring of officials in the Peruvian Executive branch.
The congressman for the Peru Libre party, with which the imprisoned former president Pedro Castillo (2021-2022) won the Peruvian Presidency in the 2021 elections, was appointed president of Congress after Jerí’s removal, which allowed him to assume the head of state by constitutional succession until next July 28.
