{"id":500478,"date":"2026-02-18T23:45:56","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T03:45:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.net\/en\/uncategorized\/who-is-jose-maria-balcazar-the-new-interim-president-of-peru-profile-controversies-and-questioning\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T23:45:56","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T03:45:56","slug":"who-is-jose-maria-balcazar-the-new-interim-president-of-peru-profile-controversies-and-questioning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/uncategorized\/who-is-jose-maria-balcazar-the-new-interim-president-of-peru-profile-controversies-and-questioning\/","title":{"rendered":"Who is Jos\u00e9 Mar\u00eda Balc\u00e1zar, the new interim president of Peru: profile, controversies and questioning"},"content":{"rendered":"The Congress of the Republic<\/strong> elected Jos\u00e9 Mar\u00eda Balc\u00e1zar, parliamentarian of the Peru Libre bench, as president of the Legislative Branch after surpassing Mar\u00eda del Carmen Alva<\/strong> in a second round of voting. By constitutional succession, that election also makes him the new interim president of the Republic, a position he will assume during the transition to the 2026 general elections, after the censure of Jos\u00e9 Jer\u00ed.\n\n\n

<\/a>Balc\u00e1zar’s election took place in a complex political climate and has generated mixed reactions. Leaders of several benches defended his experience and trajectory as the main argument for their support, while sectors of civil society and professional guilds expressed concern about his ethical suitability in the face of the responsibility of\u00a0leading the State<\/strong>\u00a0in a period of high institutional tension.<\/p>\n\n\nThe vote was decided in the second round, where Balc\u00e1zar managed to consolidate the necessary support from various parliamentary groups to prevail in the plenary of Congress<\/strong>, reflecting cross-party political agreements that sought to quickly close the power vacuum generated after the previous presidential vacancy.\n\n\n

We recommend reading:The leftist Jos\u00e9 Mar\u00eda Balc\u00e1zar is the new interim president of Peru<\/a><\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>Professional profile of Jos\u00e9 Balc\u00e1zar<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\nJos\u00e9 Mar\u00eda Balc\u00e1zar Zelada, 83 years old, was born in Cajamarca in 1943<\/strong>. He is a lawyer from the National University of Trujillo<\/strong>, in Lambayeque, and since 2021 he has served as a congressman for Peru Libre<\/strong>, representing the Lambayeque region. He has a solid background in Law, with higher studies and practical experience related to judicial practice, and before entering Parliament he worked in the Judiciary as a magistrate.\n\nIn his professional career, he was the provisional supreme vocal of the Permanent Civil Chamber of the Supreme Court, although he was not ratified by the National Council of the Magistracy, considering that he did not meet the standards required to continue in the judiciary. During his career in the Legislature, Balc\u00e1zar chaired and participated in various high-profile parliamentary commissions, including the Justice Commission<\/strong>, where he addressed projects related to institutional reforms.\n\n\n

<\/a>Support for Pedro Castillo<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\nDuring Pedro Castillo’s government, Balc\u00e1zar emerged as one of the most visible defenders of the then-president. On several occasions, he expressed direct support for the management<\/strong> and questioned the ongoing investigations<\/strong> into members close to the Executive. Regarding the case of former presidential advisor Bruno Pacheco, for example, he maintained that there was no conclusive evidence without audiovisual evidence.\n\nIn December 2022, when the presidential vacancy against Castillo was debated after the attempted coup d’\u00e9tat registered in Peru, Balc\u00e1zar did not register his vote<\/strong> in the plenary, which was interpreted as an ambiguous position at a critical moment for the country’s institutions. Jos\u00e9 Mar\u00eda Balc\u00e1zar promotes a project to restrict the diffuse control of judges (Andina)\n\n\n

Controversy over Child Marriage<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\nBalc\u00e1zar has been the protagonist of controversies due to his positions on social issues. In 2023, during the debate on the prohibition of child marriage, he argued that early sexual relations<\/strong> \u00abhelp the psychological future of women<\/strong>\u00bb and that the prohibition of unions before the age of 18 did not address the real causes of teenage pregnancies. These statements sparked rejection from human rights organizations, social groups, and political sectors that described them as supporting practices that violate the rights of children and adolescents.\n\n\n
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“It turns out that marriage in Peru has become dysfunctional. Today people don’t get married, they are all de facto unions. From the age of 14, the girls are already pregnant. What do we want with the law? To prohibit those people who become pregnant as minors? But how? If they have sex beyond what has been said here \u2014 that, in some cases, the parents sell the girls in the jungle,” said Balc\u00e1zar when justifying his abstention.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\u201cIn large cities, de facto unions are early, sexual relations are early, and forensic 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 sex education there. But marriage is dysfunctional, what do we do with people who already have children and are living together without violence being under 18 years old?\u201d, he stated during the session. Congressman Jos\u00e9 Balc\u00e1zar refers to child marriage. Channel N\n\n\n

Disbarred from the Lambayeque Bar Association<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\nThe Lambayeque Bar Association<\/strong> issued a statement rejecting the candidacy of Jos\u00e9 Balc\u00e1zar for the presidency of the Congress of the Republic, following the recent censure of Jos\u00e9 Jer\u00ed. In the pronouncement, the institution maintained that the legislator “cannot and should not be elected president”, citing antecedents and ethical questions that, according to the document, compromise his suitability to assume the position on an interim basis.\n\nYou can also read:\n\nThe guild expressed “deep concern, indignation, discomfort, pain and sadness” at Balc\u00e1zar’s nomination. In addition, it recalled that during his tenure as former dean of the professional association “he was charged with ethical, civil and criminal charges, such as the misappropriation of funds from the institution, change of ownership in the accounts in different financial institutions, lawsuits, defrauding of legal entities, etc.”, so, after a disciplinary process, he was definitively expelled from the professional association. Institutional pronouncement questions Balc\u00e1zar’s election as head of Congress. (Photo: FB\/@icalperu)\n\nThe statement also noted that Balc\u00e1zar faces pending criminal charges before the Superior Court of Justice of Lambayeque and urged the Public Ministry and the Judiciary<\/strong> to expedite the corresponding processes. The institution emphasized that the conduct of the State requires not only constitutional habilitation but also “unquestionable moral authority”.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Congress of the Republic elected Jos\u00e9 Mar\u00eda Balc\u00e1zar, parliamentarian of the Peru Libre bench, as president of the Legislative Branch after surpassing Mar\u00eda del Carmen Alva in a second round of voting. By constitutional succession, that election also makes him the new interim president of the Republic, a position he will assume during the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133556,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-500478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/phj1q1-26ce","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","dum_api":{"author_name":"Yerandi Santana","author_image":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/cropped-WhatsApp-Image-2026-02-13-at-5.35.07-PM-96x96.jpeg","categories_name":["Uncategorized"],"featured_media_url":null},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/133556"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500478\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}