Jose Maria Balcazar speaks upon arriving on the presidential palace after lawmakers elected him president a day after voting to take away interim President Jose Jeri from workplace in Lima, Peru, on February 18, 2026.
| Picture Credit score: AP
Rights teams expressed concern on Thursday (February 19, 2026) on the selection of 83-year-old Jose Maria Balcazar as Peru’s stand-in President given previous utterances on women and under-aged intercourse.
Mr. Balcazar was on Wednesday (February 18, 2026) named Peru’s interim chief, for a interval of simply over 5 months till the subsequent election, after predecessor Jose Jeri was impeached on graft allegations.
He turned the South American nation’s eighth President in a decade.
However Mr. Balcazar’s nomination has angered rights and girls’s teams.
In 2023, he informed a congressional debate about ending youngster marriage that “early sexual relations support a girl’s psychological future.”
Peru that yr handed a authorized reform to ban marriage for anybody beneath 18. Beforehand, youngsters might get married with their mother and father’ consent.
The CNDDHH rights coalition expressed concern Thursday (February 19, 2026) on the appointment “of an authority determine with a controversial public document and statements that justify sexual violence in opposition to women.”
The Flora Tristan Peruvian Ladies’s Centre, for its half, stated the selection was emblematic of a “profound moral and democratic disaster” in Peru, the place greater than half of ladies reported being a sufferer of psychological, bodily or sexual abuse by a companion, in keeping with authorities statistics.
“Anybody who minimizes violence in opposition to ladies and women is just not voicing an remoted opinion, however revealing a complacent angle towards abuse,” the middle stated in an announcement.
Mr. Balcazar has claimed his phrases have been distorted and brought out of context. He’s additionally beneath investigation for alleged misappropriation of public funds and corruption.
Printed – February 20, 2026 05:09 am IST