President of Peru
The president of Peru, officially the constitutional president of the Republic of Peru, is the head of state and head of government of Peru. The president is the head of the executive branch and is the supreme head of the Armed Forces and National Police of Peru. The office of president corresponds to the highest magistracy in the country, making the president the highest-ranking public official in Peru. Due to broadly interpreted impeachment wording in the 1993 Constitution of Peru, the Congress of Peru can impeach the president without cause, effectively making the executive branch subject to the legislature.
The president is elected to direct the general policy of the government, work with the Congress of the Republic and the Council of Ministers to enact reform, and be an administrator of the state, enforcing the constitution, which establishes the presidential requirements, rights, and obligations. The executive branch is located at the Palacio de Gobierno, located in the historic center of Lima. The building has been used and occupied by the heads of state of Peru, dating back to Francisco Pizarro and the viceroys of Peru. The incumbent president is José Jeri. As president of the Congress, he was sworn into office on 10 October 2025 after his predecessor Dina Boluarte was impeached and removed from office.
Presidential terms and transitions
Constitutional limits
Ordinarily, the president is elected to a five-year term, and is barred from immediate reelection. A former president can run again after being out of office for a full term. The change of government takes place on 28 July, which is the date of independence from Spain and thus a national holiday. The Congress of the Republic has the power to end a president's term prematurely through impeachment. Under Article 113 of the Constitution of 1993, the president can be removed due to death, "permanent moral or physical disability" determined by Congress, resignation, fleeing national territory without permission from Congress, or dismissal for committing infractions outlined in Article 117 of the Constitution.Four presidents of Peru have attempted to resign: Guillermo Billinghurst, Andrés Avelino Cáceres, Alberto Fujimori, and Pedro Pablo Kuczynski. Three presidents have been impeached unsuccessfully, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, Martín Vizcarra, and Pedro Castillo while the impeachments of Billinghurst, Fujimori, Vizcarra, and Castillo have been successful.
The president is elected to a term of five years without immediate re-election. A presidential inauguration is held every five years on 28 July in Congress. The last directly elected president was Pedro Castillo, who was elected for a term from 2021 to 2026. His Vice President, Dina Boluarte, a former civil servant, succeeded him as president following his impeachment after a failed coup attempt. There have also been a number of unrecognized presidents. In 1992 and 2019, after the dissolution of the Congress, the legislative body unsuccessfully removed the president from office and swore in vice presidents as the de facto president. There are 14 presidents that became presidents through a coup d'état. The last successful coup d'état was carried out by Alberto Fujimori in 1992, who was later imprisoned for human rights violations and corruption.
Inauguration
Setting and attendees
Presidential inaugurations take place in the Congress of the Republic of Peru in the capital city of Lima. Presidential inaugurations always take place on 28 July of its respective year, although in the case of constitutional succession, an inauguration is on the day that the presidential successor arrives in Lima, Peru. The presidential inauguration precedes the National Parade of the Military of Peru. Foreign dignitaries have often assisted the democratic transition of power in Peru.Presidential oath
The contemporary placed presidential oath in Spanish is as follows:Yo, Martín Alberto Vizcarra Cornejo, juro por Dios, por la patria, y por todos los peruanos que ejerceré fielmente el cargo de Presidente de la República que me ha confiado el nación para el periodo 2018 a 2021, que defenderé la soberanía nacional y la integridad física y moral de la República, que cumpliré y hare cumplir la constitución política y las leyes del Perú, y que reconocerá, respetando la libertad de corto, la importancia de la Iglesia Católica en la formación cultural y moral de los peruanos.The English translation is as follows:
Martín Alberto Vizcarra Cornejo, Presidential Oath of Office July 28, 2018 In English
I, , swear to God, to the Homeland, and to all Peruvians that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the Republic of Peru that has been entrusted to me by the Nation for the period to , that I will defend the sovereignty of the nation as well as the physical and moral integrity of the Nation, that I will comply and enforce the political constitution and laws of Peru, and that I will recognize, respecting freedoms, the importance of the Roman Catholic Church in the cultural and moral formation of Peruvians.The president of Congress conventionally holds the presidential sash before the president-elect takes the oath of office. Once the president-elect has taken the oath of office, the president is recognized by all branches of the government of Peru as the democratic president of the Republic of Peru, symbolized by the president of the Congress passing the presidential sash. The nominee is recognized as the president of Peru with and only with the presidential sash.
As of 2019, there have been two illegitimate presidential inaugurations performed by the Congress of Peru, but not recognized by either the executive branch or the armed forces: one in 1995 and the inauguration of Mercedes Aráoz in 2019 amidst a confrontation between the executive and legislative powers of Peru. There is also an emphasis on Christianity and the Roman Catholic Church in the oath of office. All presidents of Peru have been Catholic and have taken the oath of office alongside the Christian Bible, and in front of a Catholic Crucifix.
Origin
Pre-Columbian era
The first state recognizable as such under current concepts in the central Andes was the Wari civilization, whose system of government has not yet been fully unraveled. Later, between the thirteenth century and the sixteenth century, the Inca civilization developed, whose State, based on the political management of reciprocity and alien to all European conceptions of then and now, had the Sapa Inca at its head.The modern Peruvian state is the heir of the Viceroyalty of Peru. In 1532, the Spanish conquerors arrived in the territory, imposed their dominion and managed to establish a Spanish dependency. This dependence began as governorships corresponding to the conquerors, with the title of Governor. The Governorate of the New Toledo – which otherwise never consolidated – had as its capital the city of Cusco, the current historical capital of Peru. The Governorate of the New Castile had as its capital the City of Kings, as Lima was also called initially and it was on this that the viceroyalty was instituted after the civil wars.
In 1542, the Viceroyalty of Peru was established, whose government was held by the representative of the king of Spain with the title of Viceroy of Peru. The true organizer of the viceregal state was Francisco de Toledo. This period had only two stages corresponding to the two Spanish dynasties, the houses of Habsburg and Bourbon, and lasted 282 years from its establishment in 1542 to the Capitulation of Ayacucho in 1824, despite the independence of Peru in 1821.
José Fernando de Abascal was in charge of centralizing Spanish political and military power in Peru. His successors, the last viceroys of Peru were parallel to Jose de San Martin and his first successors. Joaquín de la Pezuela and José de la Serna faced the liberating armies and the last of them signed the capitulation. Finally, Pío Tristán was the interim viceroy in charge of transferring power to the patriots.
Republic era
In July 1821, during the Peruvian War of Independence, the autonomous states lying in the viceroyalty of Peru declared themselves as independent and sovereign from influence and mediation from the Spanish Empire. Recognizing the impending threat of Spanish backlash to regain their lost colonies, the autonomous viceroyalty began to draft a constitution on which they would decide to base the sovereign nation. Working closely with the Constituent Congress of Peru in 1822, a formal constitution was created, named the Constitution of 1823. Francisco Xavier de Luna Pizarro, a Peruvian politician, presided and led the Constituent Congress of Peru, leading to him being subjectively regarded as the first informal President of Peru.The first articles of the 1823 Constitution consisted of 24 items, known as the "Bases". These bases formally defined the borders of the Andean nation and formally created the First Republic of Peru, which still holds until the present day. The governing board, led by Luna Pizarro, declared Peruvian autonomy from Spain and a Catholic state. Additionally, the Constitution defined the three powers of the government, the executive, judicial and the legislative power. The governing board, a colloquial terminology that was used to classify the ten politicians that devised these 24 items, was the first representation of executive power and the executive branch in Peruvian history.
Later, issues arose around the bases which granted the protectorate of Peru, Simon Bolivar, overwhelming power over the legislative and executive organs of the Peruvian government. At the same time, Bolivar was already undergoing a campaign to establish a dictatorship around Andean Latin American nations. As a precursor, this incentivized the initial drafters of the constitution and the Governing Board to accelerate the process of defining reasonable executive powers, balance the three branches of power, and begin to draft an idea for the roles and powers of the official position of state leader of Peru.
The Act of Independence was signed in Lima on 15 August 1821, and soon after the government was left under the charge of José de San Martín with the title of Protector. Later, the legislative branch occupied the executive branch. In 1823 the Congress appointed José de la Riva Agüero as the first President of the Republic of the history of Peru. Since then, that has been the main denomination that has held the great majority of the rulers of Peru. The same first Political Constitution of 1823 recognizes the position, and says ex officio: "Article 72. Resides exclusively the exercise of executive power in a citizen with the name of President of the Republic." Only two constitutions have been contrary, partially, to the presidential republican system, the Lifetime Political Constitution of 1826 emanating from Simón Bolívar and expressing:
The exercise of the Executive Power resides in a Life President, a Vice President, and four Secretaries of State.By 1827, an outline of an executive along with the executive branch had been drawn out to prevent a Bolivarian dictatorship which would be seen by the populace as a general return to Spanish tyrannical rule. As a result, on 28 July 1827, Manuel Salazar assumed the formal office of the presidency and became the first president of Peru to be elected by the populace, marking the start of the Presidency of Peru.