José María Balcázar, who argued for marriage at 14 and above, replaces José Jerí who was voted out after a scandal

Peru’s congress has elected José María Balcázar, an octogenarian leftist lawmaker who has defended child marriage, as the country’s interim president ahead of general elections in April.

Balcázar is Peru’s ninth president since 2016. The surprise election, in which Balcázar beat the favourite, María del Carmen Alva, a conservative, came after lawmakers voted to remove José Jerí as president on Tuesday after just four months in office, due to a scandal over secretive meetings with Chinese businessmen.

Pedro Castillo was sentenced by the supreme court for trying to disband Congress and rule by decree in 2022

Peru’s supreme court on Thursday sentenced the former leftwing president Pedro Castillo to 11 years, five months and 15 days in prison for trying to disband Congress and rule by decree in December 2022.

Labelled Peru’s first poor president, the former rural schoolteacher, who had never held elected office before winning the presidency, was impeached by Congress and jailed on the same day after his attempted power grab.

Congress leader José Jerí sworn in as interim president as majority of lawmakers initiate impeachment against Boluarte

Lawmakers in Peru have voted to remove the president, Dina Boluarte, whose term has been marked by protests and accusations of failing to stem crime.

Boluarte refused to appear before Congress on Friday for an overnight hearing after a majority of lawmakers, including some once loyal to her, voted to initiate impeachment proceedings.

Shock decision has raised fears ancient site with almost 2,000-year-old geoglyphs will be exploited by illegal miners

Archeologists and environmentalists have expressed their outrage at a shock decision by Peru’s culture ministry to cut by nearly half the protected archaeological park around the iconic Nazca Lines, excluding an area nearly the size of urban Lima, the country’s capital city.

The Unesco world heritage attracts thousands of tourists to see the massive hummingbird, monkey and whale figures in the desert in Peru’s second-biggest tourist attraction after Machu Picchu. Last year, archaeologists using AI discovered hundreds of new geoglyphs dating back more than 2,000 years, predating the famous lines in the sand.