LIMA (Reuters) -Peruvian President Pedro Castillo said he had accepted the resignation of his prime minister on Wednesday, without giving a reason for the departure, just two months after the start of his leftist administration.
Prime Minister Guido Bellido was little-known before taking the role, but his involvement rattled the opposition-led Congress as well as nervous investors weary of a far-left administration.
Like Castillo, Bellido is a member of the Marxist-Leninist Free Peru party, but was seen as a more hard left member of the government.
In recent weeks, Bellido had talked openly of nationalizing Peru’s natural gas resources, operated by a consortium led by Argentina’s Pluspetrol.
He had also defended his labor minister, who had been questioned by Congress in a formal hearing for allegedly having been a part of a Maoist insurgency in his youth.
Bellido said he would put the entire cabinet up for a confidence vote if Congress tried to censure the labor minister, Iver Maravi.
“The balance of powers is the bridge between the rule of law and democracy,” Castillo said in a message to the nation announcing Bellido’s resignation.
“Votes of confidence, (Congressional) hearings and censure should not be used to create political instability,” he added
A quechua-speaking Peruvian, Bellido had also had mixed results in negotiating accords with indigenous communities that overwhelmingly voted Castillo into office.
On Tuesday, Bellido reached an agreement with one province near the huge Las Bambas copper mine, operated by China’s MMG Ltd.
But on Wednesday, residents of a neighboring area started a protest themselves, demanding the prime minister’s resignation.
(Reporting by Marcelo Rochabrun and Marco Aquino; editing by Richard Pullin)
