Who is Francisco Sagasti, the new president of Peru after the resignation of Manuel Merino

11/16/2020 4:55 PM

• Clarín.com

• World

Updated 11/16/2020 17:06

Francisco Rafael Sagasti Hochhausler was

born in Lima, Peru, on October 10, 1944 and is an industrial engineer, researcher and author of several books, as well as a well-remembered television series.

He was also one of the more than 700 guests who were kidnapped at the Japanese embassy in the Peruvian capital in December 1996 by a group of members of the guerrilla Movement Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA).

He was released a few days later and returned to Costa Rica, where he lived with his "Tica" wife.

He has been a congressman since March of this year for the Purple Party.

After the dissolution of Congress by President Martín Vizcarra on September 30 of last year and the call for new parliamentary elections, S

, a center-right organization, self-defined as "republican ", and that he obtained nine benches of the 130 that were at stake.

The party began to take shape in the 2016 general elections, when its leader,

, presidential candidate for the All for Peru party, was excluded from the electoral race due to alleged irregularities in his registration.

Thus it was that in May 2016, Guzmán -economist, businessman and with a stint in the government of Ollanta HUmala- announced the intention of creating a new political party, with the aim of participating in the next general elections, those of 2021, to which has reached an agreement with the center-left political organization Fuerza Ciudadana, which would put Guzmán's candidate for vice president.

Between 1972 and 1977, Sagasti was vice president of the Board of Directors of the Institute of Technological, Industrial and Technical Standards Research of Peru (ITINTEC) and advisor to the Minister of Industry during the government of the military government of Francisco Morales Bermúdez.

From 1985 to 1987 he was Advisor to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Allan Wagner,

He was also a member of the Advisory Council of the National Planning Institute.

Then, he left the country and from 1987 to 1992 he was Head of Strategic Planning at the World Bank and advisor to the Departments of Policy Evaluation and External Relations in the same international organization.

He also went through the second government of Alan García, when between 2007 and 2009 he was President of the Board of Directors of the Science and Technology Program.

He held the same position during the government of Ollanta Humala between 2011 and 2013.

In addition, he has a vast career in academia, since he has been a professor at the Universidad del Pacífico and at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú;

Visiting Professor at the Instituto de Empresa in Madrid, at the Silberberg Chair at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, and at the University for Peace in Costa Rica. 

From 2009 to 2014 he was principal investigator of FORO Nacional / Internacional, an entity dedicated to promoting debate and consensus

.

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