Keiko Fujimori announced on social media that her father, 85-year-old former dictator Alberto Fujimori, will be the presidential candidate in the 2026 elections for the political party Popular Force. “My father and I have talked and decided together that he will be the [presidential] candidate,” said the founder of Popular Force.
Keiko Fujimori is currently being investigated over her alleged participation in money laundering to favor her political party, which could lead to her disqualification from the race. With her father as candidate, it could allow the Popular Force party to have a member of the Fujimori family as a candidate.
Rumors about the possible candidacy of the former dictator have continued since the end of 2023 when he was released from prison. But it was last June that these suspicions were confirmed. Alberto Fujimori joined his daughter’s political party and affirmed, in an answer to the Peruvian newspaper El Comercio: “Today I reaffirm my decision and will to assume all risks. I want to return to work for all Peruvians”.
Alberto Fujimori was sentenced in 2009 to 25 years in prison for human rights violations and embezzlement. Former President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski granted him a pardon in 2017 due to the former president’s alleged poor health. However, in 2018 the Judiciary annulled the humanitarian pardon and Fujimori returned to prison. Despite this, in December 2018, Peru’s Constitutional Court allowed him to be released from prison through a reinstatement of the previous humanitarian pardon.
On December 8, 2023, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights asked the Peruvian State not to release Fujimori: “The former president had been serving since 2009 a 25-year prison sentence for being the mediate perpetrator of the massacre of 15 people in Barrios Altos, the forced disappearance and execution of 10 students from La Cantuta University, and the abductions of Gustavo Gorriti and Samuel Dyer. In 2022, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ordered that the State of Peru refrain from implementing the release warrant that followed that pardon, noting that the conditions required for compliance with court rulings in the Barrios Altos and La Cantuta cases had not been met…. The IACHR emphatically calls on the State to take effective measures to protect the right to access justice of victims of crimes against humanity, respecting their dignity.”
Can Alberto Fujimori participate in the presidential elections?
Several experts claim that the former dictator’s participation would be not be permitted under Peruvian law. Aníbal Quiroga, constitutional lawyer, affirmed in an interview with CNN that Fujimori’s candidacy is illegal: “It is an absolute contradiction and contradicts the very essence of the pardon because he was supposedly pardoned because he was very ill and the premise was, ‘no one should die in prison’ and now he wants to run a presidential campaign… [The Fujimori family’s announcement] constitutes a moral challenge for Peruvian society because it alters the fragile political system with an absurd initiative. Fujimori, condemned for very serious crimes by a court of justice, for an active conviction, cannot now pretend to be president of the Peruvian people.”
According to other lawyers, Article 33 of the Constitution prohibits those convicted of a crime from participating as candidates in elections. In this sense, the pardon granted by Kuczynski does not annul the conviction, so he would be prevented from participating in the presidential elections. However, other experts fear that the law could be interpreted in such a way that Fujimori could be a candidate. For now, according to Peru’s Prime Minister, Gustavo Adrianzén, the National Jury of Elections (JNE) will be the first to decide if the former dictator can participate in the upcoming elections
The Fujimori dictatorship of the 1990s
Alberto Fujimori ruled Peru for a decade between 1990 and 2000. His extreme right-wing government was characterized by the aggressive implementation of neoliberal economic policies such as the privatization of state-owned companies and the deregulated entry of foreign capital into the national economy. In 1992, Fujimori dissolved the legislative power, thus becoming dictator of the Andean country. In 1993, he approved a new constitution that gave even more powers to the Executive.
His government was characterized by heavy repression and the perpetration of crimes against humanity in the context of the country’s internal armed conflict. In 2000, he fled to Japan amid serious accusations of corruption and electoral fraud and resigned from the presidency of Peru by fax. In 2005, he was arrested in Chile and extradited to Peru, where he was convicted of human rights violations and embezzlement.