José María Balcázar

José María Balcázar Zelada is a Peruvian politician and lawyer who has been the president of Peru since 2026. First elected to Congress of Peru as a member of the Free Peru party in 2021, he resigned his membership in 2022 and helped found Bicentennial Peru, a parliamentary bloc of dissident Free Peru congresspeople. He returned to the Free Peru caucus in 2024 but remains as an independent, after Bicentennial Peru's dissolution. He was briefly a member of Alfonso López Chau's party, Now Nation, until he was expelled in early 2026.