Peru's Congress effectively fired Interior Minister Fernando Rospigliosi on Wednesday when it censured him over accusations he mishandled a riot in southern Peru last month that led to the killing of a mayor.

"He has to resign now; it's obligatory," Rospigliosi's chief adviser, Dante Vera, told Reuters. "He will resign first thing tomorrow."

The opposition censure motion was passed by 62 votes -- one more than required under Congress rules -- to 39 with six abstentions. Five members of President Alejandro Toledo's Peru Posible party voted in favor of dumping Rospigliosi, according to Congress President Henry Pease.

It was the first time a minister in Toledo's deeply unpopular government of almost three years had been ordered out by Congress in a confidence test.

"There is responsibility for not preventing a situation that cost the life of a mayor and wounded others. ... This is a wake-up call for the government," said opposition lawmaker
Javier Diez Canseco.

Rospigliosi's resignation will be his second departure from the Toledo government. He quit the same job in 2002 after fatal protests in the southern city of Arequipa against plans to
privatize two power companies.

There was no immediate word on Rospigliosi's replacement.

His is the just the latest head to roll in Toledo's rocky government. Four ministers and his vice president have already gone in a string of influence-peddling scandals since November and Toledo is desperate to avoid more crises.

Opposition lawmakers say Rospigliosi did not act to calm three weeks of protests before a 15,000-strong mob of mostly Aymara Indians kidnapped and killed Cirilo Robles, the mayor of Ilave, a small town near Lake Titicaca, on April 25.

They accused Robles of embezzling state funds destined for the impoverished town. Witnesses said there were just 15 police officers in the town at the time.

"I voted for the censure because I believe Rospigliosi is politically responsible for the mayor's murder. ... This is a victory for the Aymara people," Paulina Arpasi, a native Aymara member of Toledo's party, told Reuters.

Rospigliosi told Congress last week he had done everything possible during the protests to calm the townspeople and worked with church members and municipal authorities to end the
roadblocks constructed by protesters.

He blamed Robles for ignoring warnings not to return to Ilave from hiding, a move that inflamed town residents. 

Days after the Ilave killing, 800 people in the nearby village of Tilali took five town hall officials hostage after their mayor fled, again accused of corruption. They were later
released.