On Tuesday, Peru’s Congress voted to remove the country’s interim President José Jerí just four months after he took office. This followed a scandal where the leader failed to report meetings with Chinese businessmen.

Jerí’s impeachment is the second time a Peruvian President has been removed by Congress in less than six months and the sixth time one has left office before the end of their term within the past decade. This highlights the country’s ongoing political instability.

In a 75 – 24 vote, with three abstentions, lawmakers passed seven impeachment motions against the former head of Congress. He became interim president in October after the removal of his predecessor Dina Boluarte.

Fernando Rospigliosi, the current acting head of Congress, would have been next in line to assume the presidency according to the constitution, but he declined. Instead, the legislature will choose a new leader to replace Jerí on Wednesday. Parties will have until 6:00 p.m. local time that day to choose their candidates, Rospigliosi said.

A general election is scheduled for April 12, and after that, power will be transferred to a new President on July 28.

In recent weeks, Jerí was caught on video entering establishments owned by a Chinese businessman, Yang Zhihua, who holds a state energy concession and owns multiple stores. The footage showed the leader wearing a hooded top when arriving at a restaurant owned by the businessman late at night in December and sunglasses when entering a Chinese goods store in early January. Peruvian law requires Presidents to disclose official activities, but Jerí did not report the visits to Yang’s establishments.

The leader confirmed the authenticity of the videos last month and admitted that he had not disclosed the visits, but he has denied any wrongdoing.

“I haven’t committed any crimes,” Jerí said on Sunday.

Jerí said he knew Yang before assuming the presidency and claimed that the businessman gave him some candy and paintings without asking for payment “because he was being kind to me.” The interim president refused to provide his phone records to lawmakers.

The revelation of the undisclosed interactions with Yang led to calls for Jerí’s resignation, and the attorney general launched a corruption investigation into the matter.

Cuarto Poder, a television broadcaster that first aired the videos, reported that another Chinese businessman, Ji Wu Xiaodong, who is reportedly under house arrest during an investigation into his alleged ties to illegal logging, visited the presidential palace three times when Jerí was president. When speaking to lawmakers, Jerí denied knowing Ji Wu well, saying the businessman was a friend of Yang’s.

showed Jerí’s approval rating dropping 10 points from his previous 51% since the scandal.

This controversy is the latest in a series of scandals that Peru’s Presidents have been involved in.

Jerí’s predecessor, Boluarte, was impeached in October amidst strong criticism for rising crime rates and corruption investigations. At that time, there was no acting vice president, so Jerí, who was then the head of Congress, assumed the presidency after Boluarte’s removal.

Boluarte herself became president in 2022 after Pedro Castillo, for whom she served as vice president, was removed from office following a failed attempt to dissolve Congress and rule by decree.

Castillo has since been convicted of conspiracy and rebellion and sentenced to 11 years in prison. Other past presidents have also received long prison terms: Alejandro Toledo, who held the position from 2001 to 2006, got 20 years in jail for corruption and money – laundering. Ollanta Humala, who served as president from 2011 to 2016, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for illegal campaign financing.