LIMA: President Ollanta Humala replaced his prime minister with a former army officer who was his instructor in the military in an unexpected Cabinet shake-up that stunned Peru.
Oscar Valdes, who until now had been Humala’s interior minister, will replace Salomon Lerner, a businessman who was the most powerful centrist in the government and had helped Humala shed his left-wing image to win election in June.
A government source said Humala, who was a professional soldier before he turned to politics, asked Lerner to quit to allow him to build more “cohesion” in his ideologically diverse cabinet.
Political analysts said the Cabinet shuffle showed Humala would adopt a more authoritarian style but likely leave intact the country’s free-market economic model, which depends heavily on foreign investment in the mining and oil sectors.”This confirms the economic model will endure and be prolonged, it’s a step sectors on the right will applaud,” Hildebrandt said. (Reuters)
