Peru's President Pedro Castillo apologized for the low female presence in his cabinet

Lima, September 5 (RHC)-- Peru's President Pedro Castillo apologized for the low female presence in his cabinet, two women and 16 men, and promised to empower women.  "I assume a mea culpa for the majority number of men in the cabinet," the leftist president acknowledged Friday at the Lima Convention Center in San Borja.

However, Castillo announced his decision to reevaluate the composition of his team in order to assign more women to public positions.  "I am going to correct myself so that in the framework of the efforts we are making, we have to include the women, we have to include those women who have experience," he assured.

Likewise, the president, a rural teacher and a popular figure among Peruvians, underlined that during his mandate he will do everything possible to "enhance the voice of women and empower them".  "We hope that more women will assume more public positions," he said.

Of the 18 ministers in Castillo's Cabinet, two are women: Dina Boluarte, appointed as Vice President and Minister of Development and Social Inclusion, and Anahí Durand Guevara, who serves as Minister of Women and Vulnerable Populations.

Castillo's government, installed on July 28, obtained last August 27 the vote of confidence in a divided Parliament and little representation of the ruling party, Peru Libre.

The Executive has denounced time and again that the right wing exerts pressure and persecutes Cabinet ministers to prevent the president from governing the country.  In fact, the right wing has resorted to the low presence of women in the cabinet to tarnish the president's image.

So far, two of Castillo's ministers, Foreign Minister Héctor Béjar and Labor Minister Iber Maraví, have fallen in a month under pressure from the opposition, which accused them of having links or sympathizing with the Shining Path guerrillas, an organization emblematic of political violence in the Andean country that is often used to delegitimize the left.

Analysts warn that Peru's right-wing parties are aiming to remove President Castillo, and are therefore preparing the conditions for a presidential vacancy.