Valentín Paniagua Corazao

Valentín Paniagua Corazao, 2003

Valentín Paniagua Corazao (born September 23, 1936 in Cusco , † October 16, 2006 in Lima ) was a Peruvian lawyer and politician. He was the interim president of Peru from November 22, 2000 to July 28, 2001.

Life

childhood

Paniagua's mother died shortly after he was born of an infection that could not be cured due to the lack of penicillin . He has enjoyed playing chess since childhood. Valentín Paniagua went to the school of Don Bosco's Salesians in Cusco. He then studied law at the University of San Antonio Abad in Cusco and the University of San Marcos in Lima.

Teaching

Valentín Paniagua taught at various universities in Lima. He was also an honorary professor at the Universidad Nacional San Antonio Abad in Cusco and an honorary academic at the State Medical Academy of Peru. His areas of expertise were constitutional and administrative law as well as the political institutions of Peru.

Political career

Paniagua belonged to the Partido Demócrata Cristiano until 1974 and then to the Acción Popular . From 1963 to 1968 he was a member of the Peruvian Congress for the department of Cusco for the first time and was Minister of Justice from 1965 to 1966 in the cabinet of Fernando Belaúnde Terry . In 1980 he moved into parliament again, this time in Lima, and was its president from 1982 to 1983. In 1984, when Fernando Belaúnde Terry was again President, Paniagua was briefly Minister of Education. From 1998 to 2003 he was Secretary General of the Acción Popular and returned to Parliament in the 2000 elections.

After Alberto Fujimori's resignation in November 2000, Valentín Paniagua took over the post of President on an interim basis. He organized the new elections in 2001, in which his party did not put up a candidate, and handed over the office to the election winner Alejandro Toledo .

Valentín Paniagua was a holder of the order El Sol del Perú (Gran Cruz).

2006 elections

In the presidential elections in 2006 he ran again for the center alliance Frente del Centro , which consisted largely of his party Acción Popular , but only came in fourth with a share of the vote of around 10%.

Sickness and death

At the end of August 2006 he became seriously ill with pericarditis and was then in the hospital in the intensive care unit. He died in Lima on October 16, 2006.

In his political career, Valentín Paniagua had earned the reputation of an honest, honest and unpretentious politician, which was given high credit, especially against the background of the corruption and nepotism that is widespread in Peruvian politics.

Web links

• Biography in Spanish