Peru’s President Pedro Castillo has sacked Prime Minister Hector Valer Pinto three days after appointing him, after revelations that he was accused of domestic vIolence, AFP reports.
“I have decided to recompose the cabinet,” he said in a television address, where he did not mention Pinto by name. This is Castillo’s third cabinet reshuffle. He said he would reconstitute the cabinet, after leaders in Congress declined to hold a vote of confidence on the Cabinet named Tuesday.
The opposition and some other cabinet members were opposed to Pinto’s presence in the government. When the president names a new cabinet, it will be his fourth since taking power six months ago.
Valer Pinto, 62, first came under pressure Thursday when newspapers reported that in 2016 his wife and university-age daughter reported him for domestic v!olence.
On Friday, before the president pushed him out, the speaker of congress urged the prime minister to resign. Three ministers also challenged him, with Foreign Minister Cesar Landa writing on Twitter that “public service requires officials free of such accusations.”
Valer Pinto responded to the news reports by denying he was an “ab#ser” and said he was never convicted of domestic v!olence.
He insisted he would stay on in his job unless congress passed a no-confidence motion.
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