Vizcarra set to become Peru’s new leader

LIMA: Peru‘s Vice President Martin Vizcarra, an austere engineer with no connection to traditional political parties, was set to be sworn in Friday as the country’s president, replacing Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, who resigned this week amid a swirling corruption scandal.

Vizcarra, who had been serving as Peru‘s ambassador to Canada, arrived during the night to assume the presidency but there had been uncertainty up to the last minute whether the Congress would accept Kuczynski’s resignation. Some lawmakers had been pushing for a vote to impeach the 79-year-old president over his links to Brazil’s scandal-plagued construction giant Odebrecht. But shortly before Vizcarra’s swearing-in at 1700 GMT, the Congress voted 105-11, with four abstentions, to accept Kuczynski’s resignation