If a couple of weeks ago, Keiko Fujimori said that she would love for her father to be the presidential candidate of Fuerza Popular in the next general elections, now she has left aside the ambiguities and through a video, with a nostalgic melody, she has announced that following having meditated on it together they have decided that he will be the main card of Fujimorism for the 2026 presidential elections.
The video reproduces a recent interview from the Beto a Saber program on the Willax television channel, where the leader of the Orange Party describes a conversation with her father, Alberto Fujimori, where he tells her that he wants to “return to the political arena” and that he is “aware of each of the risks that this entails.” The daughter of the former autocrat who governed Peru in the nineties has said: “I looked at the sparkle in his eyes and I said: yes, he is going to do politics until the last day of his life. So I told him: ‘Look, dad, if you really want that, I will support you. I have started to do politics with you.’”
In August 1994, at just nineteen years old, Keiko Fujimori assumed the role of First Lady following her parents separated. Her mother, Susana Higuchi, reported that during the authoritarian government of Alberto Fujimori she was imprisoned by the Army Intelligence Service and tortured with electroshock discharges because she went to report him for alleged theft of donations from Japan and the United States for a charitable foundation that she chaired. Keiko has denied such abuse and has repeatedly said that it was a myth.
“I think he should be the one to lead the way. I would let my father be the leader of that presidential ticket,” says Keiko Fujimori in part of the video. Her interlocutor, the journalist Beto Ortiz, tells her: “I think that if he is the presidential candidate, he will win.” The daughter of the patriarch who has lost the last three elections by a narrow margin agrees: “Me too.”
As expected, the announcement has sparked rejection from a large sector of the population, which highlights a contradiction: Alberto Fujimori was released from prison in December 2023 due to a questionable decision by the Constitutional Court that legitimised a presidential pardon granted in 2017 based on his “poor health”. Seven years later, Fujimori seems to have left those ailments behind and now intends to run for the highest public office when he is almost 88 years old in 2026.
On paper, Alberto Fujimori is barred from running for office. According to the Constitution, all those convicted of having committed a wilful crime, whether perpetrators or accomplices, are prohibited from running for elected office. Fujimori was sentenced to 25 years in prison for crimes once morest human rights following being declared the indirect perpetrator of massacres during his government.
Ernesto Blume, a former magistrate of the Constitutional Court, has stressed that the presidential pardon granted to Fujimori has not exonerated him. “He is not in a position (to apply) because the pardon has forgiven him the remainder of the sentence he had pending, but it has not eliminated his criminal responsibility or the nature of the sentence itself.” In addition, there is an aggravating factor: Fujimori owes 15 million dollars to the Peruvian State for various crimes, of which he has not paid anything yet.
For political scientist Fernando Tuesta, a specialist in electoral issues, Keiko Fujimori’s announcement is a strategy to create expectations, set the agenda and pave the way for her to the presidency. “Objections will be filed and it will be the National Elections Jury that declares the candidacy ineligible, while Fuerza Popular protests and claims that it is unfair. Perhaps they will talk regarding fraud. If this happens, they will place the vice president as a candidate —Keiko?— and they will have won a long stretch with high visibility and their passage to the second round, pressuring the rest to line up behind them. A well thought out strategy that is already successful,” he argues.
The National Elections Jury has not yet made a statement on the matter. The truth is that Keiko Fujimori, who is currently attending the oral trial of the Cócteles case where she is accused of money laundering, criminal organization and obstruction of justice, has already raised the issue.
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