PERU: Faced with a government revolt after the prime minister quit to protest his choice for the new foreign minister, Peru's President Alejandro Toledo said he had asked all his ministers to tender their resignations and would evaluate who would keep their jobs.
"In a few weeks the deadline expires for those officials who have a legitimate right and aspiration to be candidates for public positions [ in elections next year] to resign," a serious-looking Mr Toledo said in a brief statement to the media.
"To give them the necessary time to prepare, the president has asked the whole cabinet to tender their resignations and will evaluate who will stay and who will not," he said.
The president made no mention of the resignations hours earlier of prime minister Carlos Ferrero and housing and construction minister Carlos Bruce, who quit abruptly after Mr Toledo swore in his closest and most controversial ally as foreign minister.
The appointment of Fernando Olivera, with whom Mr Ferrero and Mr Bruce had publicly disagreed over a regional ruling legalising some cultivation of the raw material for cocaine, brought an avalanche of criticism among politicians and outraged members of the public who called radio shows to complain.
Jesus Alvarado, one of the senior leaders of Toledo's Peru Posible party, called for Mr Olivera "to add the word 'irrevocable' to his resignation and then politics will return to normal again."
Under Peru's constitution, once a prime minister quits, all ministers must tender their resignations, but Mr Toledo said he was trying to avoid more confusion ahead of the elections.
Mr Toledo's approval rating recently crept up to 14 per cent but is likely to take another hit.
He is barred by law from standing in April 2006 elections and will leave office in July. But he needs to keep a firm grip on the country until then amid signs that public spending is rising too fast and more job and pay protests are brewing.
Former interior minister Fernando Rospigliosi said Mr Olivera's appointment had been "a serious error because it wasn't hard to see it was going to cause all this trouble."
Mr Olivera, justice minister in Mr Toledo's first Cabinet in 2001 and ambassador to Spain for the past three years, has rarely appeared far from Mr Toledo's side recently, and analysts said some ministers felt he would have been giving them orders.
He heads the junior coalition party whose support is crucial in a congress where Mr Toledo lacks a majority.
Mr Olivera's abrasive manner has made him many enemies. He also called the government's drugs chief inefficient and urged him to quit.