Popular Renaissance Party leader Rafael López Aliaga, who is leading in electoral preference polls ahead of the 2026 elections, announced on Thursday that he would remove unproductive ambassadors so that diplomatic residences stop being “summer places” and become “work spaces.”
During the EDIRCOM 2025 Summit, the former Mayor of Lima stated that to be an ambassador it would be necessary to “chamber”, so he suggested that he would evaluate diplomats’ key performance indicators (KPI); Otherwise, they will cease to hold their positions.
“The goal is set for you. Sir, you have to increase tourism in the country where you are in Peru, inbound tourism. You have to increase imports or exports from Peru to the country you are in. You have to hold exhibitions. You can’t be at a cocktail party, then,” he pointed out.
“We will appoint professional export people as ambassadors. The important element is also that the ambassador is an investment promoter. He must be a man who works, works and earns his salary. The ambassador must, at the very least, increase Peruvian exports, bring more tourism to Peru, and bring investment,” he added.
He described it as “ridiculous” that Peru does not have investment promotion treaties with the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Qatar. He added: “There is a lot of money. They are looking to enter Peru and we are not setting the conditions there. This will happen on July 28, but within hours. It must be done within hours.”
In another part of his speech, López Aliaga announced legal action against Canadian fund Brookfield, which in 2016 bought the concessionaire of three toll plazas in Lima from Odebrecht.
“We will file with the Peruvian Attorney General’s Office a lawsuit for more than $3 billion against Brookfield and other accomplices for fraudulently purchasing Odebrecht shares. We will also move forward with the Peruvian Attorney General’s Office to seize and forfeit all assets that Odebrecht still owns in Peru, effective immediately, on July 28,” he said.
Brookfield acquired toll concessionaire Rutas de Lima in mid-2016, before the Odebrecht corruption scandal became known. At the end of that year, it was revealed that the Brazilian construction company had carried out a massive scheme of bribery and irregular campaign financing in exchange for public works contracts in several Latin American countries.
At midnight this Thursday Lima Roads It stopped operating the road arteries that it had managed since 2013, even though the Benavides Tunnel, which was under its management, was not closed, as it announced in its last statement.
Lopez Aliaga concluded his speech in this regard: “These pests leave a contract standing (…). They do it in New York and you go to prison. You cannot leave a contract lying around and leave a closed tunnel. No, this is not in the contract. They make fun of us. We have to show respect and really fear us. The Peruvian is respectable and Peru is respectable.”