Peru VP quits but hangs onto Congress seat
http://news.yahoo.com/peru-vp-quits-hangs-onto-congress-seat-045150340.html
LIMA (Reuters) - Peruvian Vice President Omar Chehade has resigned over corruption allegations but managed to hang onto his seat in Congress on Tuesday after surviving an expulsion vote.
He was able to retain his job in Congress after 13 members of the Permanent Commission in the legislature voted to keep him and 12 voted to remove him.
The departure of Chehade from one of Peru's two largely ceremonial vice presidential posts will not hurt the stability of the government and could help President Ollanta Humala further distance himself from the aide who caused one of the first scandals of his term. Humala took office in July after campaigning on promises to fight corruption.
The scandal initially hurt Humala's popularity, but a Cabinet shuffle he carried out in December and a crackdown on anti-mining protests has lifted his approval rating 7 percentage points to 54 percent, according to a poll published on Sunday. Chehade's resignation could remove a weight that had dragged on Humala's approval rating.
"