In a reshuffle that occurred on Monday, six Peruvian cabinet ministers resigned, following an investigation into how President Dina Boluarte obtained the Rolex watches that she has been spotted wearing.
Interior Minister Victor Torres resigned first, two days after police under his command raided and searched the president's house and office, as Peru was engulfed in a scandal dubbed Rolexgate.
A few hours later, five more ministers resigned. They served in the capacities of foreign trade, women's affairs, education, rural development, and production.
The resignations occurred two days prior to Gustavo Adrianzen, the newly appointed prime minister, and his cabinet being sworn in before congress in a vote that had been scheduled for a month, though the government did not provide an explanation for them.
Boluarte swore in six new ministers on Monday night to take the place of the departing ones.
Following a cabinet meeting, Torres announced his resignation for personal reasons.
However, many saw his exit as retaliation for the president's target raids over the weekend. In Congress, he has also faced a great deal of criticism due to a sharp rise in street crime.
Torres claimed that he and Boluarte had planned his exit. Torres told reporters, "I am leaving because I asked the lady, and she accepted."
With six different presidents in the past eight years, Peruvian politics is a turbulent one.
The most recent drama started in mid-March when it was revealed by a news program that Boluarte, who has a very low approval rating, owns multiple pricey Rolex watches, and it's unclear how she got them. She earns roughly $55,000 annually.
Boluarte, 61, has only clarified that the watches are the result of a life well spent in labour.
She is currently the subject of a corruption investigation to find out if, since assuming office in December 2022, she has improperly enriched herself and for not declaring the watches to be among her possessions.
Boluarte has been told to present any Rolex watches she may have when she appears at the formal statement she is expected to provide to investigators on Friday.
The dramatic raids that took place Friday night and into Saturday morning turned up nothing.
After then-president Pedro Castillo attempted to dissolve Congress and rule by decree, Boluarte came to power in December 2022. This led to his arrest and violent protests calling for her resignation and the holding of new elections.
In addition, she is being sued under the constitution for suppressing those protests, which resulted in the deaths of over fifty people.
According to the constitution, if she is charged in the Rolex case, a trial cannot happen until after her term expires in July 2026 or until she is impeached.
Congress may try to remove her due to "moral incapacity", but that would take unlikely support from Boluarte's main allies, the right-leaning groups that control the legislature, and their left-wing opponents.
