Interim Leader Names Perez de Cuellar as Prime Minister

Ending a decade of authoritarian rule, Valentin Paniagua became Peru’s interim president Wednesday and set out to restore credibility to the country’s tattered democracy, naming a former U.N. chief as prime minister.

Paniagua, a political moderate who is widely respected for his honesty and conciliatory style, took the oath of office to the cheers of his supporters in Congress two days after Alberto Fujimori resigned, forced out by a corruption scandal involving his top advisor.

Faced with a rising clamor for greater democracy, Paniagua named as his Cabinet chief former U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar, who lost to Fujimori in 1995 elections. The announcement drew loud applause from lawmakers and the gallery.

Paniagua, 64, will head a caretaker government until July, when an elected president is sworn in. Paniagua cannot run for election.

Outraged lawmakers dismissed Fujimori in a raucous session of Congress late Tuesday, refusing to accept his resignation and declaring him morally unfit for office. Fujimori, while on an Asian trip, fled last week to Japan, where he says he is staying indefinitely.

Fujimori on Wednesday left the posh Tokyo hotel where he had been holed up since arriving in Japan, said a secretary at the Peruvian Embassy in Tokyo. The secretary declined to say where Fujimori had gone, but Japanese public broadcaster NHK reported that he was moving to a friend’s home in the capital.

Fujimori’s grip on power was weakened by a corruption scandal that engulfed his now-fugitive ex-spy chief, Vladimiro Montesinos.