Peru president reshuffles cabinet for second time in six months

By Marco Aquino

LIMA (Reuters) -President Dina Boluarte of Peru reshuffled six posts in her cabinet on Wednesday, the second partial reshuffle in her eight-month-old administration, though she retained ministers overseeing the key economy and energy and mining portfolios.

Boluarte took office in December after her predecessor Pedro Castillo, whom she had served as vice-president, was ousted and arrested after trying to dissolve Congress. The ouster was followed by months of protests demanding early elections and Boluarte's resignation, leaving dozens dead.

Cabinet changes are frequent in the world's second-largest copper producing nation, which has seen six presidents in just five years. Peru's ministers of education, justice, transport, labor, production and agrarian development were dismissed.

Magnet Marquez, the former education minister, clashed with fellow lawmakers in Congress this week over her opposition to a law she argued was anti-meritocratic as it would allow dismissed teachers to be reinstated.

The new ministers were sworn in at the government palace in the capital Lima.

The last major reshuffle took place in April, when four of Peru's 19-minister cabinet were removed from their posts.

(Reporting by Marco Aquino; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Stephen Coates)