Peruvian President Castillo names new finance minister, prime minister to stay on

LIMA (Reuters) -Peruvian President Pedro Castillo reshuffled his cabinet on Friday, naming a new finance minister but stopping short of a full revamp by keeping Prime Minister Anibal Torres in his role.

The president tapped Kurt Burneo, a center-left economist who served as an economy vice minister in the early 2000s under President Alejandro Toledo, to replace Oscar Graham in the key finance minister post.

Burneo is a former director of Peru’s central bank and former president of the Bank of the Nation.

On Friday evening, Castillo said he did not accept Torres’ resignation earlier this week, tweeting that Torres remained committed to work for the country.

Keeping Torres as cabinet chief means the executive will not have to seek a new confidence vote from Congress, doing away with a key risk.

Castillo’s decision to keep Torres comes amid red-hot tensions with Congress. The legislature this week denied Castillo’s request to travel for Colombia’s presidential inauguration, an unprecedented rejection that has in the past been treated as routine.

Castillo’s presidency has been increasingly beset by political instability and allegations of corruption.

Prosecutors have opened five criminal investigations into the president, and some lawmakers are calling for him to be impeached for a third time.

(Reporting by Marco Aquino and Marcelo Rochabrun; Writing by Marcelo Rochabrun and Brendan O’Boyle; Editing by Kim Coghill & Shri Navaratnam)