Peru’s Congress has removed interim President José Jerí just four months into his term, making him the third consecutive leader to be ousted and the seventh president since 2016—a dizzying collapse of political stability that comes just weeks before Peruvians were supposed to vote for a new leader.
The 75-24 vote on Wednesday followed a scandal dubbed “Chifa-gate” after security footage emerged showing Jerí in hooded, late-night meetings with a Chinese businessman under government scrutiny. Jerí failed to document the encounters as required by law.
He is the third president in a row to be removed. His predecessor, Dina Boluarte, was impeached in October 2025. The president before her, Pedro Castillo, was impeached in 2024. The pattern is now so entrenched that political observers barely register surprise.
The Hoodie Videos
The scandal that brought down Jerí unfolded last month when local media broadcast security camera footage of the president meeting multiple times with businessman Zhihua Yang, who was under government investigation and whose companies received state concessions.
In one video, Jerí wore a hooded top during a late-night visit to one of Yang’s restaurants. Also present at one meeting was another Chinese citizen under house arrest while being investigated for alleged links to an illegal timber network.
Peruvian law requires presidents to document all official activities. Jerí recorded none of these encounters.
He apologized for the meetings but denied wrongdoing, accusing rivals of a public smear campaign.
The Women in the Palace
Jerí faced further criticism after reports emerged that state contracts had been awarded to women following late-night meetings they had with him in the presidential palace. The revelations deepened public disgust with a leader already seen as illegitimate—he was never elected, but assumed office as head of Congress after Boluarte’s impeachment.
His approval ratings plummeted. The attorney general launched a corruption investigation. Pressure mounted for him to resign.
A Different Parliamentary Path
Lawmakers had scheduled a debate on impeaching Jerí, but instead used a different procedure called censure, which requires only a simple majority rather than the two-thirds super-majority needed for impeachment. The maneuver allowed Congress to remove him quickly and decisively.
Ruth Luque, one of the lawmakers who backed the measure, captured the national mood: “We ask to end this agony so we can truly create the transition citizens are hoping for. Not a transition with hidden interests, influence-peddling, secret meetings, and hooded figures. We don’t want that sort of transition.”
What Comes Next
Later Wednesday, Congress will name a new interim president who will serve only until the general elections in April—now just two months away. Whoever wins those elections will inherit a nation that has burned through seven presidents in a decade.
The instability shows no sign of abating. Less than a week after Jerí assumed office in October, protests organized by young Peruvians demanding action on crime and corruption left one dead and more than 100 injured.
For now, Peru’s political class has removed another leader. But the underlying conditions that produced Jerí—a fractured Congress, weak institutions, a public desperate for change—remain untouched. The hoodie videos are gone. The president is gone, but the problem is not.
