Vizcarra, Martín (Martín Alberto Vizcarra Cornejo), 1963–, Peruvian political leader. A civil engineer, he worked from 1992 to 2010 in his family's construction business. As a member of the Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana (APRA) party, he ran unsuccessfully in 2006 for governor of Moquegua dept., then won the post in 2011, serving until 2014. In 2016 he was elected first vice president as the running mate of Pedro Pablo Kuczynski Godard, the candidate of Peruvians for Change. In office, he also served as minister of transport and communications (2016–17) and ambassador to Canada (2017–18). Following Kuczynski's resignation when he seemed likely to be impeached, Vizcarra became president (2018). Taking a strong anticorruption stance, he won popular support and secured adoption (2018) of three constitutional amendments intended to reduce government corruption. Conflicts with congress over reforms led in 2019 to his dismissing legislators and calling new legislative elections on weak constitutional grounds, but he then survived a congressional attempt to remove him from office. In 2020, however, he was removed by legislators, who cited the government's handling of COVID-19 pandemic to justify the move.
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