With his approval rating in single digits, Alejandro Toledo shuffles his Cabinet in what many say is an effort to hang on to his administration.

LIMA - (AP) -- Peru's president swore in seven politically independent ministers to his 16-member Cabinet on Monday in what opponents called a ''last chance'' to save his administration.

Citing a dismal 7 percent approval rating and lack of credibility, some opponents have called for President Alejandro Toledo to step down and advance elections before the end of his five-year term in 2006.

Others have demanded that he become a figurehead leader and relinquish decision-making to a Cabinet of politically independent technocrats.

''We see this as a last chance . . . that we hope is not squandered,'' conservative opposition leader Lourdes Flores said.

It was not immediately clear how much power Toledo's fifth Cabinet would have. In contrast to previous ministerial shuffles, he did not make an address after he swore in the new ministers at the Government Palace.

Toledo, 57, took office in 2001 as a champion of democracy following the collapse of Alberto Fujimori's decade-long authoritarian regime amid a corruption scandal in 2000. At the time, Toledo's approval rating neared 60 percent.

But the honeymoon for Peru's first democratically elected president of Indian descent was short, and his popularity tumbled amid complaints that he was indecisive and failed to deliver hundreds of thousands of promised jobs.

''The president doesn't realize the seriousness of the situation and the need for radical and profound changes,'' novelist Mario Vargas Llosa said Sunday.

Among the Cabinet changes, Toledo brought back his first finance minister, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, a U.S. investment banker popular with Wall Street, in an apparent bid to reassure foreign investors.

Political independents were also named to head the ministries of Justice, Education, Health, Work, Production and Transportation. Seven other ministers remained in their posts and Jaime Quijandria moved from the Ministry of Finance to Energy and Mines.

When Toledo last changed his Cabinet in December, critics slammed him for filling it with party hacks. With Monday's shuffle, only three ministers belong to Toledo's political party, including Ferrero.

Toledo's worst crisis was triggered last month by accusations that one of his former advisors plotted with an army general wanted on corruption charges about how to bribe investigating judges.

The charges came after a chain of scandals had felled four Cabinet ministers since November. Although the president quickly distanced himself from the now-fading corruption allegations, they came as a blow to Toledo, once heralded as an anti-corruption crusader.