Mercedes Cabanillas Bustamante is a Peruvian educator and politician. A prominent member of the Peruvian Aprista Party, she served as Minister of Education in the first presidency of Alan García, making her the first woman to assume a cabinet position in the history of Peru. Most recently, she briefly served as Minister of Interior in Alan García's second administration, a position subject to scrutiny as she was signaled as responsible of the repression of natives in the 2009 Amazon crisis, in Bagua, which forced her to resign, and effectively ended her political career. Throughout most of her political career, Cabanillas served as a congresswoman in a variety of non-consecutive terms between 1985 and 2011. In 1995, she became the first woman to be selected as a major party presidential nominee with the Peruvian Aprista Party, placing third in the general election. She would go on to be elected as the second woman to be President of Congress in 2006. Cabanillas retired from politics after a failed congressional reelection bid in the 2011 general election.
She was elected to Congress as a Member of the Chamber of Deputies for the term 1985-1990. She entered the Government when President Alan García appointed her Minister of Education in 1987, after the resignation of the Cabinet led by Prime Minister Luis Alva Castro. At the helm, she promised to attend the demands of the teachers syndicate, SUTEP. She began with a raise of 35% for the public teachers. She visited schools in Lima and Provinces. Surprisingly, in 1988, the Electoral Committee of the Party elected her as Candidate for Mayor of Lima. She resigned from office in August 1988 to run for the mayorship, placing fourth.
Senate and Presidential Nominee
After placing fourth in the mayorship race, she ran for a seat in the Senate, gaining the highest number of votes, thus elected Senator for the term 1990-1995. Her office was terminated when President Alberto Fujimori dissolved Congress with his self coup in 1992. In 1995 Cabanillas ran for the presidency as the Peruvian Aprista Party nominee, attaining only 4.11% of the popular vote. Her running mates were former senator Jorge Lozada Stanbury and Alejandro Santa María Silva.
In 2000, she was elected to Congress under the Peruvian Aprista Party. She was reelected in 2001 and 2006. When Alan García was elected President for the term 2006-2011, Congress appointed her President of the Congress for the annual term 2006-2007. On February 19, 2009, President Alan García appointed her Minister of the Interior. As such she was in charge of the Police forces that were sent to the amazon region of Bagua to repress Natives who were protesting against the government that was giving away their ancestral lands to foreign corporations for oil drilling, mining and logging. As a result of the violent intervention of the heavily armed police and military forces over 50 Natives were killed and nearly 200 wounded. As Minister of the Interior she gave the order to attack the Natives. She resigned alongside the Prime Minister Yehude Simon on July 11. She served in Congress until her term expired in 2011, as she failed to win a fourth consecutive election, receiving a minority of votes, prompting her to retire from politics. She remains a very influential leader in the Peruvian Aprista Party, serving as Chair of the party's Electoral Tribunal since 2017. She was reelected to the same position in 2019.
