Beatriz Merino

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Beatriz Merino Lucero (born November 15, 1947) was the first and to date only female Prime Minister of Peru.

Beatriz Merino Lucero was the prime minister of Peru, which is the highest ranking position ever held by a woman in the history of Peru[1]. She held office between 23 June 2003 and 12 December 2003. Before serving as prime minister, she graduated from Harvard with a Master’s degree in law. She also obtained an LLM degree from the London School of Economics in 1974. Merino was director of the Women’s Leadership Program at the Inter-American Development Bank to support and finance projects to enhance women’s leadership in Latin America. She also worked as a lawyer at the law firm Estudio Merino and Reano and worked extensively in commercial, labor, corporate and environmental legislation [2]. She served as a Senator from 1990-1992 and then served in Congress from 1995-2000. She was also the first Peruvian woman to serve on the Commission of Andean Jurists. At Lima University, she was also the director of foreign cooperation and of the Master’s program on tax revenues and fiscal policies. Her short reign in office was ended when she was fired by President Alejandro Toledo. She has a 60% approval rating before the rumors started that she was a lesbian. Merino was unmarried and had purchased a home with a female colleague. In a strictly Roman Catholic nation, the accusations were enough for her dismissal; which she learned about after returning from a trip to the United States [3].

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Preceded by
Luis Solari De La Fuente
Prime Ministers of Peru
2003 – 2003
Succeeded by
Carlos Ferrero