Keiko Fujimori
President-elect of Peru (born 1975)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Keiko Sofía Fujimori Higuchi[a][b] (born 25 May 1975) is a Peruvian politician and the president-elect of Peru. The eldest daughter of former president Alberto Fujimori, she is the leading figure of Fujimorism, the conservative political movement associated with her father, and has led its party, Popular Force, since 2010. Fujimori served as First Lady of Peru from 1994 to 2000 and as a member of Congress for Lima from 2006 to 2011. After advancing to the runoff but losing in the 2011, 2016, and 2021 presidential elections, she won the presidency on her fourth attempt in 2026 and is due to take office on 28 July 2026. Fujimori is the first woman to be elected President of Peru.
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- First Vice President
Luis Galarreta (elect) - Second Vice President
Miki Torres (elect)
Keiko Fujimori | |
|---|---|
Fujimori in 2026 | |
| President-elect of Peru | |
| Assuming office 28 July 2026 | |
| Vice President |
|
| Succeeding | José María Balcázar |
| First Lady of Peru | |
| In role 23 August 1994 – 22 November 2000 | |
| President | Alberto Fujimori |
| Preceded by | Susana Higuchi |
| Succeeded by | Nilda Jara |
| Member of Congress | |
| In office 27 July 2006 – 26 July 2011 | |
| Constituency | Lima |
| President of Popular Force | |
| Assumed office 22 July 2009 | |
Secretary-General | |
| Preceded by | Position established |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Keiko Sofía Fujimori Higuchi 25 May 1975 Jesús María, Lima, Peru |
| Party | Popular Force (2010–present) |
Other political affiliations | New Majority (1992–2010) |
| Spouse |
Mark Villanella
(m. 2004; div. 2022) |
| Children | 2 |
| Parents |
|
| Relatives |
|
| Education | |
| Signature |  |
Born in Lima to Alberto Fujimori and Susana Higuchi, she became First Lady at the age of 19 in 1994, after her father removed her mother from the role during the couple's separation; she held the position until the collapse of his government in 2000. She studied business administration in the United States at Stony Brook and Boston universities and later at Columbia. Fujimori entered electoral politics in 2006, winning a congressional seat with a record number of votes, and in 2010 she took over the party she has led since, the later renamed Popular Force.
Fujimori lost each of her first three presidential bids in narrow and polarizing runoffs to Ollanta Humala in 2011, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski in 2016, and Pedro Castillo in 2021. From 2018, she was prosecuted in connection with the Odebrecht corruption scandal, being accused of laundering illicit funds into her campaigns; she spent more than a year in pretrial detention before her release in 2020. After narrowly losing the 2021 runoff, she made unsubstantiated claims of electoral fraud that international observers rejected and commentators compared to Donald Trump's attempts to overturn the 2020 U.S. election. A second corruption case was dismissed shortly before she launched her successful 2026 campaign, where she defeated Roberto Sánchez.
Early life and education
Keiko Sofía Fujimori Higuchi was born on 25 May 1975 in the Jesús María district of Lima.[1][2] The eldest of four children of Alberto Fujimori and Susana Higuchi, she has three younger siblings, including Kenji, who later became a congressman.[3][4] Her parents' marriage was troubled, and as the eldest child she often mediated between them.[5] She and her siblings attended the Catholic school Colegio Sagrados Corazones Recoleta in Lima.[4][6] According to her biographers, as a teenager she felt pressure to please her father and used publicly funded presidential vehicles, including the presidential jet, for personal events.[7]
Fujimori's father was elected president of Peru in 1990 and governed until 2000. His administration oversaw an economic recovery and the defeat of the Shining Path insurgency, but grew increasingly authoritarian, dissolving Congress in a 1992 self-coup; it was also marked by corruption and human rights abuses during the internal conflict in Peru, such as extrajudicial killings and the forced sterilization of thousands of mostly poor, rural, and Indigenous women. His legacy in Peru remains deeply divisive.[3][8][9][10]
In 1993, after her father's self-coup, Fujimori finished secondary school and moved to the United States, enrolling at Stony Brook University to study business administration.[11] Investigators later alleged that the roughly $918,000 cost of her and her siblings' schooling was paid by her father's intelligence chief, Vladimiro Montesinos, from state intelligence funds (his former secretary said Keiko received some of the money in person) and that, per La Prensa, a foundation in Panama financed her studies at Boston University.[12] She graduated from Boston University in May 1997.[2]
First Lady and early political career (1994–2006)
First lady
Fujimori's studies were interrupted in 1994, when her parents separated after her mother, Susana Higuchi, publicly accused her father of corruption and of having her tortured, prompting him to remove Higuchi from the ceremonial role of First Lady of Peru.[13] Summoned home from Stony Brook, Fujimori assumed the position on 23 August 1994 at the age of 19, becoming the youngest first lady in the Americas.[13][14] Her biographers describe the role as largely ceremonial and say her father chose her for her loyalty.[15] She headed the Foundation for the Children of Peru, a body customarily led by the first lady, and founded a charity providing heart surgery for children with congenital heart defects.[2][16]
At the 1995 inauguration of Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Fujimori first voiced an ambition to become Peru's first woman president, though she said she was reluctant to enter politics, which she felt had disrupted her family and adolescence.[17] Her parents divorced in 1996.[13] Higuchi later alleged that she had been tortured repeatedly during the presidency and that Alberto had ordered Vladimiro Montesinos to kill her, an accusation Montesinos denied.[18] As first lady, Fujimori publicly downplayed her mother's allegations, dismissing the torture claims as a "legend", and was criticised—particularly by the opposition—for failing to defend her.[19][20] She also faced accusations that she had diverted clothing donated by Japanese-Peruvians, in a case that reached the Supreme Court of Peru,[1] and that she had the Government Palace repainted pink.[21] She later reconciled with her mother, who went on to support her presidential campaigns.[22] During these years she grew close to Ana Herz de la Vega, who became a lasting mentor.[23]
In 1998, Fujimori publicly opposed her father's bid for a third term, then considered unconstitutional, saying: "As a daughter, I would prefer that my father rest, but as a citizen, I believe he is what the country requires."[19] She nonetheless campaigned for him in 1995 and 2000, and as the scandal surrounding Montesinos deepened, her father delegated greater responsibilities to her, including the decision to dissolve the Montesinos-controlled National Intelligence Service (SIN).[24] In November 2000, Alberto Fujimori fled to Japan and resigned the presidency amid a sweeping corruption scandal; his daughter urged him instead to return and defend himself in court.[1][25] She left the Government Palace on 21 November 2000, when Congress removed him from office, and—declining her mother's offer to live together—moved in with a paternal aunt.[19]
Education in the United States
After visiting her father in Tokyo in 2001, Fujimori moved to the United States in 2002 to study for a master's in business administration at Columbia University, stepping back from politics, taking a job at General Motors, and focusing on her marriage.[19][26] In 2004 she married Mark Vito Villanella in Lima, in a ceremony officiated by the Archbishop of Lima, Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne, after which the couple returned to New York.[19]
In 2005, Fujimori's father told her he intended to relocate to Chile and campaign for the 2006 general election.[26] He arrived in Santiago on 6 November 2005 but was arrested by Interpol shortly afterward and barred from the race, along with his Sí Cumple coalition.[19][27]
Congress of Peru (2006–2011)
After her father's 2005 arrest in Chile, Fujimori ended her residency in the United States and returned to Peru to run for office, partly to campaign for his release.[26] With Alberto barred from the 2006 election, his supporters formed the Alliance for the Future (Alianza por el Futuro); Fujimori, then 31 and constitutionally too young to run for president, headed its congressional list for Lima.[19] She was elected with 602,869 votes—the highest total of any candidate nationwide and, at the time, a record for a Peruvian legislator—while the coalition's presidential nominee, Martha Chávez, finished fourth and the alliance won 13 of 120 seats.[28][29] Fujimori attributed her result largely to public gratitude toward her father.[30]
In Congress from 2006 to 2011, Fujimori led the fujimorista bloc as what she called a "constructive opposition" to President Alan García and his APRA party, maintaining a working dialogue that critics linked to lenient treatment of her imprisoned father.[31][19] A low-profile legislator but a prominent spokesperson for the movement, she concentrated on criminal-justice measures, unsuccessfully seeking to reinstate the death penalty for terrorism and other grave crimes and sponsoring tougher sentencing for repeat offenders.[32][33] She introduced about 20 bills over five years, six of which passed, and was criticized for missing some 500 sessions during a term in which she took maternity leave and travelled abroad, including to complete her MBA at Columbia University.[34][33] In 2008 she launched a new party, Fuerza 2011 (later renamed Popular Force), to unify Fujimorismo behind a 2011 presidential bid.[35]
Following her father's extradition from Chile in September 2007, Fujimori organized demonstrations in his support and predicted his acquittal.[19] In April 2009, Peru's Supreme Court convicted him of human rights abuses—including the Barrios Altos massacre and La Cantuta massacre—and sentenced him to 25 years in prison.[36] Fujimori condemned the verdict as an "injustice" and the product of "political and judicial persecution", and vowed to pardon her father if she were elected president.[19][37]
Presidential campaigns
2011 presidential election
Creation of Fuerza 2011
On 13 January 2008, Fujimori announced the creation of a new political party, Fuerza 2011, that would nominate a candidate for 2011. It would nominate her if her father was blocked from running by the law.[19] Fujimori's decision to assume her father's legacy created a rift between fujimorista groups,[38][39] with Cambio 90 and New Majority deciding to maintain their organizational independence.[19] This rift created two groups of fujimoristas; the "albertistas" who believed Alberto Fujimori remained the leader of fujimorism and the "keikistas" who supported Keiko Fujimori as the new champion of the movement.[39] During this period, Fujimori and Fuerza 2011 reconstructed the public's opinions and memories regarding her father.[39]
In April 2009, Alberto was convicted for another time, this time sentenced for 25 years of prison for crimes against humanity, specifically referring to various massacres, which left 25 people in total dead.[40] Before the ruling, Fujimori had organized another demonstration that had managed to obtain the attendance of 10,000 people, where she challenged the existence of any evidence against her father.[41][19] She attributed the ruling to "vengeance" against "the best president that we have ever had in the country."[19] In an opinion poll taken at the time, 70% of the population believed that the ex-president was guilty, while 27% believed he was innocent.[19] At the same time, when asked whether they would support him for president, between 19 and 21% said that they would if he were allowed to run.[19]
On 9 March 2010, the National Jury of Elections formally recognized the political party after more than one million signatures were collected,[42][19] a number that surpassed the requirement by 854,000 signatures. On 19 May, she officially launched this new political organization.[19] On 17 December, she announced her candidacy during a campaign in a Lima neighborhood.[43] Rafael Rey, minister of defense, Peruvian representative to the Andean Parliament and member of the conservative party National Renewal, was the first vice-presidential candidate while Jaime Yoshiyama, her father's former minister during his presidency, was the second.[44][19] Ana Herz de la Vega served as a secretary for Fujimori's new party.[39] As for congressional candidates, Fujimori's father decided who would be included on the ballots for Fuerza 2011.[39]
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Campaign and result
Fujimori hired former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani as an advisor on homeland security policy.[45] Throughout the entire campaign, Fujimori fiercely defended her various proposals, among them to apply the death penalty to certain crimes, create jobs, fight poverty, control public accounts, sponsor free trade, counter crime, begin an "offensive against corruption", improve the education system via a reward initiative for excellent teachers, and an accompanying system for gauging teacher skills.[46][37][19] Her campaign was fundamentally built upon a defense of her father's government. In her opinion, that government had been responsible for defeating terrorism and stabilizing the economy. However, she also found it necessary to distance herself from the scandals that ended up ending the presidency of her father, trying to blame Montesinos for the violations of human rights and corruption while also promising to not pardon her father, a constitutional power of the president.[47][48][19] Fujimori also recognized "errors" and "excesses" committed during her father's terms and reminded the public of her opposition to her father's third term.[49]
During the campaign for the first ballot, Fujimori became embroiled in a new scandal as she admitted to having received donations from people allegedly involved in drug trafficking during her run for Congress in 2006.[50] She admitted to having received 10,000 dollars from two convicted women who, according to Fujimori, were victims of persecution.[51]
Opinion polls granted her high possibilities to win the presidential elections in 2011;[52] she was leading in presidential election polls as of July 2010.[53] In the first round of the 2011 presidential elections, Fujimori received 23.551% of the votes (3.4 million),[54] second only to Ollanta Humala, a leftist nationalist candidate who received 31.699% of the votes.[55] Pedro Pablo Kuczynski was third with 18.512%, followed by Alejandro Toledo and Luis Castañeda, ex-mayor of Lima.[56] Kuczynski and Castañeda subsequently declared their support for Fujimori while Toledo declared for Humala.[57][58] With 37 representatives, Fuerza 2011 became the second most powerful party in congress.[59] Fujimori's brother, Kenji Gerardo Fujimori, was elected representative for Lima, receiving the most votes of any national candidate.[60]
The second vote was polarized. In this process, she moderated her position in order to capture more of the vote, distancing herself more from her father.[39] Near election date, polls indicated effectively a tie due to the margin of error.[61] The election was also marked by fearmongering by both sides of the aisle. According to Sinesio Lopez, professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, "Humala's candidacy fed into fears that his political program would kill small businesses. Keiko's candidacy, meanwhile, fed into fears of a return to corruption and violation of human rights that had occurred during her father's government."[62] Humala was also branded by his opponents as a purportedly Chavista authoritarian.[63][64] As a result, both were incredibly polarizing figures, with polls showing that both encountered stern rejection from about 50% of the population during the first round of voting.[64] According to the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs, eight million people, mostly centrists and members of the middle class, said they would be electing the "lesser evil" for the nation.[19]
In the 5 June runoff, she lost to Humala, 51.34% (7,937,704 votes) to 48.66% (7,490,647 votes).[65] She had received the majority of her support from the business community, conservatives, the majority of the press, liberal professionals, small businesses, the church, and much of the Lima middle class.[62][46] With 90% of polls closed, Fujimori admitted her defeat and personally congratulated Humala on his win.[66][67]
Post-campaign
After her 2011 defeat, Fujimori began to work toward a renewed campaign for 2016.[19] Her strategy began with a small change as on 29 June 2012, she announced a new name for her party: Fuerza Popular,[68][69][19] a change that officially took effect 4 January 2013.[70][71][72] According to her, she had chosen a new name for the party so that it "would be able to last in the times."[19] The logo for her party, orange with a big white "K" (for Keiko), stayed the same. Furthermore, she continued to serve as its president.[73][19] The new party did not present any declaration of ideology for the electoral authorities, but she seemed to maintain the essence of fujimorismo, including the defense of neoliberal economics, financial stability, and strict security.[19] Despite these continuities, she continued to slowly distance herself from the legacy of her father.[19]
In October 2012, Fujimori and her brothers requested a humanitarian pardon for their father, who, according to the defense, was having health problems.[74] Fujimori herself declared "we are submitting a letter to president Ollanta Humala in order to inform him of this request for freedom. It will be personal letter from four children to inform him of the commencement of this process."[75] In June 2013, Humala denied the request for clemency, alleging that according to a medical professional, the ex-president did not suffer from any terminal illness nor any serious and incurable mental illnesses.[76] In January 2015, her father was convicted for a third time, this time sentenced for eight years for having been guilty for misappropriation of public funds to buy off tabloids for his 2000 election.[77]
Between 2011 and 2016, Fujimori intended to strengthen her party, travelling across the country to mitigate the hesitancy many still had toward her because of her connection to Alberto Fujimori, a factor that had been decisive in her 2011 defeat.[78][19][79] She dedicated herself to cutting the association, including by removing corrupt members of her party and reaching out to youth.[80][81][82] Her electoral base continued to be in Lima and the center of the country.[83] Although she did not serve out a single public function during this period that could have increased her visibility, Fujimori led all opinion polls throughout 2015, with more than 30% support.[19] She also benefited from an ongoing political crisis and accusations of corruption against Humala that made his approval ratings drop to just 20%.
2016 presidential election
On 4 December 2015, Fujimori officially announced her candidacy for president in the 2016 elections.[84] Her running mates were ex-minister of agriculture and irrigation Jose Chilmper Ackerman for first vice president and Vladimiro Huaroc Portocarrero, ex-regional governor of Junin as the second vice president.[85] Fujimori outlined six "pillars", among them defense of institutions of a higher law, independence of powers, protection of human rights, support for limiting the armed forces, a free market, tax cuts, incentives for small businesses, use of emergency state funds to kickstart the economy, increase in supply of government bonds, and expansion of electrical and internet infrastructure in rural areas.[86][87][88]
In January 2016, there were 19 presidential candidates, but by the first vote, nine had been expelled or dropped out. César Acuña and Julio Guzmán, two of the main competitors, had been excluded according to the National Jury of Elections.[89][90] The candidacy of Acuña was interrupted because he gave money to the people during the campaign and Guzmán was forced out of the race because of questions about whether his party functioned democratically.[91][92] Fujimori was not free of accusations as the JNE also requested her removal from the election after it came to light that she had received donations larger than those allowed by the election laws. Fujimori countered that the accusations against her were "irresponsible" and alleged insufficient evidence.[93] The JNE dismissed the claims as unfounded, declaring that "The candidate has not engaged in the prohibited activities of offering or giving money or gifts in the aim of obtaining votes."[94][95][96] The outcome provoked suspicions that the original exclusionary rulings had been made in favor of Fujimori's candidacy, calling into question the clarity of the system for applying the election rules.[90][89]
First round
As the first vote arrived, Fujimori maintained her lead over her competitors.[97] With Acuña and Guzmán's disqualifications, her main opponents were now the center-right economist and former minister Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (PPK), the left-leaning psychologist and congresswoman Veronika Mendoza, and the former delegate Alfredo Barnechea. Also in the ring were Alan Garcia and Alejandro Toledo, ex-presidents whose prospects were dim because of investigations and revelations connecting them to Operation Car Wash.[98][99]
On the anniversary of the self-coup of 1992, more than 50,000 demonstrators, most of them called by the non-profit organization No a Keiko, protested Fujimori's candidacy with chants such as "Fujimori never more" in the Plaza San Martin.[100][101][102] As she had done in the previous elections, she promised to not pardon her father, but promised also to continue the struggle in court for his release;[103][104] she also affirmed that this was a decision taken by the whole family, not just herself.[103] Fujimori maintained a high level of disapproval, approximately 45% according to Ipsos, deriving mainly from the negative legacy of her father who was again seeking freedom and appeals for his sentence.[105][106][107] The appeals process intensified, bringing Keiko to distance herself from the controversial shadow of her father, vowing to not follow his path, to provide reparations to women who were allegedly sterilized under her father, and to promise to not pardon him for his crimes, signing a document during a debate symbolizing her promise.[108][109] She also stated that she would not run for another election if she won the presidency.[109] She also supported the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, responsible for detailing the human rights violations committed between 1980 and 2000 by both the Shining Path Insurgency and the government, for the first time.[110][111][19]
Polls indicated that she placed first in the first round of voting on 10 April, garnering approximately 40% of the vote over opponents Pedro Pablo Kuczynski and Verónika Mendoza who each received approximately 20%.[112][113] Fuerza Popular obtained an absolute majority in the congress, garnering 73 of 130 available seats.[114] After learning of the results, Fujimori said, "The new political map that has been drawn clearly shows us that Peru wants reconciliation and does not want any more violence."[115] However, as no candidate had obtained a majority of votes for president, a second vote would be scheduled for 5 June.[116]
Second round
In this next stage of the campaign, Fujimori traveled across the country, especially to where her father continued to maintain a steady level of popularity, while PPK talked about possible allies and intended to present himself as a centrist candidate capable of winning over the antifujimorista vote.[117] Fujimori continued to be the favorite according to polls,[118] but her campaign suffered a major setback: as the election approached, accusations surfaced of connections between drug trafficking and Congressman Joaquín Ramírez, Secretary General of Fuerza Popular and one of Fujimori's principle aides. On 15 May 2016, Peruvian news program Cuarto Poder broadcast a report conducted with Univision that alleging that Ramírez was being investigated by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) for money laundering.[119] According to the report, the DEA had a recording in which Ramirez told a commercial pilot, "Do you know that China [referring to Keiko] gave me 15 million dollars during the last campaign in order to "clean" them for the 2011 campaign, and that I 'cleaned' them through a chain of fuel stations?"[120] The DEA initially denied that there was any investigation into Fujimori, who denied any involvement in the case or having in fact ever given any money to Ramirez.[121] Years later in 2023, the DEA confirmed, according to Univision, that Fujimori was still being investigated.[122]
Her image continue to take a hit, primarily due to fears that the country would turn into a narco-state with her election, fears that were stoked by her rival PPK.[117][123][124] At the same time, prosecutors announced they would be investigating suspicions of money laundering and other irregularities in Fujimori's campaign, which she dismissed as simply a smear campaign.[125] In the final days before the vote, the leaders of the left, such as Mendoza, announced their support for PPK.[126][127][117] At the beginning of June, another march organized by several left-leaning organizations against Fujimori garnered thousands of demonstraters in Lima.[128] According to analysts, this second march was decisive in those not yet decided showing support for the PPK.[117]
In a very contested election, Fujimori trailed Pedro Pablo Kuczynski according to exit polls as ballots were counted late into the evening on 5 June 2016. The recount took up copious amounts of time after election day.[129] Due to the narrow margin involved, the national (and international, to a lesser degree) press only began to consider PPK as the new "virtual president" on 9 June, four days after the original vote.[130][131] At that point, PPK had obtained 50.12% of the vote, compared with 49.88% for Fujimori.[132] On 10 June, Fujimori admitted her defeat, saying that her party had a "vigilant" opposition and wishing the new president elect well.[133] On the other hand, Fujimori also claimed that the PPK had won with the help of "promoters of hatred" and "the political, economic, and media power of the outgoing government."[134][135] Kuczynski had won by a narrow margin of less than half a percentage point, and was sworn in as president on 28 July.
Post-campaign
After the 2016 elections, Fujimori and her political allies immediately declared that electoral fraud had occurred, claiming that Humala and PPK had collaborated to manipulate the election.[136] However, Popular Force held the most political power following elections, having 73 of 130 seats in Congress, allowing Fujimorists to bypass other parties in the legislature.[136] This majority resulted with Fujimori and her party controlling Congress for a decade.[137]
Fujimori continued to be the main leader of the opposition against PPK's government presiding over the parliamentary majority, while defending herself from accusations of having maintained a controversial relationship with the Odebrecht conglomerate.[138] In December 2017, she also supported the first impeachment process against Pedro Pablo Kuczynski,[139] though he pardoned her father Alberto Fujimori on 24 December 2017, three days after the impeachment process failed.[140]
Her brother, Kenji Fujimori, declared his opposition to such a move, which worsened a growing rift between the siblings over their father's legacy and control of the opposition.[141] In March 2018, PPK resigned having been accused of buying votes against his impeachment. At the time, Kenji was recorded negotiating for votes in favor of PPK's acquittal, dubbed his kenjivideos, in return for a pardon for his father, a deal which PPK ended up following through with.[142][143][144] When she found out about the videos, Keiko, accused of being partly responsible for the leak of the recordings, condemned her brother's actions. Upon his expulsion from Congress in June 2018, Kenji responded, "Keiko, congratulations! Here you have my head on a platter."[145][146] During the second round of elections in 2016, Kenji did not vote for his own sister because he refused to compromise on the freedom of their father or have a discourse on his errors.[147][148] When he lost a challenge to become leader of Fuerza Popular, Kenji promised to run for president in 2021, something that his sister was also planning to do for the third time,[149][150][151] this time in a new party that would split from Fuerza Popular along with other dissidents in the party.[152]
When PPK resigned on 23 March 2018, the presidency was passed to civil engineer Martín Vizcarra, with Fujimori welcoming him and wished for his "success" through a tweet the same day.[153] Nevertheless, she heavily criticized Vizcarra's 2018 Peruvian constitutional referendum since included on the ballot was whether citizens supported the re-election of congressmen and the return of a bicameral legislature. She claimed that the ballot items "are evidence of centrist populism", asked the president to "stop seeing congress members as your enemies", and was empowered to make as the parliamentary majority leader to attempt to defeat the measures through the referendum.[154][155]
Arrest and temporary imprisonment
On 10 October 2018, Fujimori was arrested and placed in provisional detention on charges of money laundering days after the Supreme Court of Peru nullified the pardon of her father, ordering him back to prison.[156][157][158] The arrest came at the request of the Public Ministry,[159] who accused her of illegally receiving money from Odebrecht during her campaign in 2011 as part of the Lava Jato corruption scandal.[156] The arrest order stated that she led a "criminal organization inside of Fuerza 2011 [today Fuerza Popular]."[160] In response, Fujimori said that she was being politically persecuted.[161] On 18 October, she was let go as her appeal was accepted by the National Audience.[162] On 31 October, she was arrested again when she was again sentenced to 3 years of pretrial detention for money laundering and "a high risk of escaping", as per the decision by judge Richard Concepcion Carhuancho.[163] While Fujimori was investigated, the Fujimorist-led Congress used their power to protect her from further prosecution.[164]
Fujimori appealed yet again to be set free, but the appeal was rejected by the Superior Court of Justice in January 2019.[165] By August 2019, the Supreme Court, due to an impasse between its members, delayed their decision on her appeal.[166] Simultaneously, Fujimorists in Congress introduced a new law of "illegal financing of electoral campaigns", which was designed to enact a lower penalty than a money laundering charge and to obstruct prosecutors from punishing Fujimori.[164]
In September 2019, La Republica revealed that Fujimori had used a pseudonym together with the rest of her party's leadership in a Telegram group chat called "Titanic Group" where she made the most important party decisions under the name Ruth.[167][168] By December 2019, Jose Camayo, a businessman investigated for the Cuellos Blancos case involved with Fuerza Popular, declared before the Operation Car Wash Special Team that Señora K, a person accused of corruption, was in fact Keiko Fujimori herself, something that was later denied by her,[169] and made a significant impact on the ongoing investigation.[170][171][172]
With the newly-introduced ex post facto law from Congress resulted with prosecutors being unable to file money laundering charges against Fujimori and, in turn, giving Fujimori the benefit of a lower penalty and pretrial detention limits.[164] In January 2020, the tribunal decided, four votes to three, to grant her habeas corpus on the grounds that the preventative detention sentence was invalid. Shortly afterward, her husband Mark Vito began a hunger strike in a camp installed in front of the prison where she was detained. On 28 January 2020, the judge Victor Zuniga Urday re-imposed a preventive prison for 15 months on the charges of money laundering from the Odebrecht company.[173][174] However, on 30 April 2020, a Peruvian appeals court overturned her 15-month detention order and granted her a conditional release from prison.[175] She was finally released on bail on 5 May 2020.[176]
2021 presidential election
After a few months out of the spotlight despite still leading her party, on 25 September 2020, she announced her total return to politics.[177] A month later, 30 November, still under investigation by the Operation Car Wash team, she tweeted that she was officially announcing her candidacy as the Fuerza Popular's presidential candidate with her ballot partners ex-congressional president Luis Galarreta as first vice president and the former lawyer and director of National Solidarity, Patricia Juarez as second vice president.[178] Fujimori's party helped lead the controversial removal of Martín Vizcarra and his replacement by Manuel Merino,[179] which resulted with the 2020 Peruvian protests. The protests were violently put down, resulting in the deaths of two college students among the protestors.[180][181] Shortly after their deaths, Fujimori lamented what had happened and also considered the current situation as "unsustainable", calling for Merino to step down or else he "should be censured right here right now", a move she believed a majority of Congress would support.[182]
On 9 December, she won the internal party elections to become Fuerza Popular's candidate for the 2021 election.[183] The campaign got off to a rocky start as on the same day as a victory, a poll by Peru21 released a national Datum poll which revealed that 63% of Peruvians said they would "never vote" for her.[184] Then, on 21 December, the National Jury of Elections declared that Fuerza Popular's presidential board was "inadmissible" and gave them two days to follow their instructions.[185] In the end, the board was finally revised and admitted.[186]
She has said that she wanted to be a president with a "heavy hand" and "authority", proposing increased legal protection on law enforcement.[187][188] She has called for the construction of more prisons to reduce overcrowding and to offer more instances of probation for small crime offenders.[188] In a break with previous elections in which she promised not to pardon her father, Fujimori emphasized her closeness to his legacy during this election, stating that "after conversations that I have had with my father, through letters and during the year he's recently had in freedom, we've been able to get much closer and understand things about each other" as well as expressing that his presidency "was not a dictatorship, despite some moments of authoritarianism", and making clear a renewed promise to pardon her father if elected.[189][190] She proposed a large stimulus to voters that would represent three percent of Peru's annual gross domestic product, possibly increasing the low national debt that exists in Peru.[188]
Throughout the presidential campaign, she was among the frontrunners in opinion polling.[191] Following the first round election, Fujimori gave a speech in which she framed the runoff as a battle between "markets and Marxism", framing her second round opponent Pedro Castillo as a communist.[192] Americas Society/Council of the Americas wrote that a Fujimori presidency would bring the appearance of maintaining the status quo in Peru, but it would make the nation "far from stable."[188]
Aftermath
After Castillo took the lead during the ballot-counting process in the second round of elections, Fujimori disseminated unsubstantiated claims of electoral fraud.[193][194] According to The Guardian, various international observers countered Fujimori's claims, stating that the election process was conducted in accordance with international standards,[193] with electoral observers from the Inter-American Union of Electoral Organizations, the Organization of American States, and the Progressive International denying any instances of widespread fraud while also praising the accuracy of the elections.[195][196]
Fujimori's statements about possibly overturning the election were described as being inspired by the attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election by 45th U.S. president Donald Trump.[197][198][199] The Guardian also reported that analysts and political observers criticized Fujimori's remarks, noting that it made her appear desperate after losing her third presidential run in a ten-year period.[193] If elected into the presidency, criminal investigations against Fujimori would have been suspended until July 2026, with Anne Applebaum writing in The Atlantic that "the personal stakes are high. ... Fujimori previously spent a year in jail while awaiting trial for allegedly collecting illegal campaign contributions, and she could conceivably be sent back."[199][200]
Cocktails Case
In December 2021, prosecutor José Domingo Pérez reported that Fujimori had received one million dollars from the Odebrecht Department of Structured Operations, delivered through offshore intermediary accounts of Gonzalo Monteverde's company Construmaq.[201][202] Pérez stated that he held 1,900 pieces of evidence to determine that a criminal group existed within Popular Force.[201] In what would be called the "Cocktails Case", Fujimori was charged with criminal conspiracy, money laundering, obstruction of justice, and perjury.[203] In May 2022, the Fujimorist-led Congress replaced 6 of 7 judges belonging to the Constitutional Court, with the court aligning itself with Congress' motives according to IDL-Reporteros.[204][205] During the trial process, the Peruvian Public Ministry controversy occurred in November 2023 when an aide for Attorney General Patricia Benavides, Jaime Villanueva, became an informant and alleged Benavides and Fujimori collaborated in avoiding investigations.[206][207] Benavides and Fujimori denied the allegations.[207][208]
The Constitutional Court ordered the release of Alberto Fujimori in December 2023. It was speculated that he, instead of Keiko, would run for president.[209] Alberto later joined the Popular Force, and on 14 July 2024, Keiko announced his presidential candidacy despite his age, health, and legal impediments.[210] Months after being released, Alberto died from health complications on 11 September 2024.[211]
On 20 October 2025, the Constitutional Court also annulled Keiko's trial and the case was dismissed in January 2026.[212]
2026 presidential election
Following the dismissal of the money-laundering case by the Constitutional Court,[213] Fujimori formally announced her presidential candidacy days later on 30 October 2025, with Luis Galarreta and former Congressman Miki Torres being named her running mates.[214][215] In the first round, Fujimori, a conservative or far-right politician, placed first. Roberto Sánchez, a left-wing psychologist and politician, placed second, narrowly surpassing far-right businessman Rafael López Aliaga.[216][217]
By this time, the Atlantic Council wrote that the Fujimorist-led Congress had engaged in constitutional hardball to remove multiple sitting presidents and that members of Congress had begun to promote legislation that benefitted criminal activity.[218] Human Rights Watch even alleged, as part of the title of an article published on their website, that Congress was "allowing organized crime to thrive" in Peru.[219] According to the Associated Press, Congress "eliminated preliminary detention in certain cases and raised the threshold for seizing criminal assets and carrying out searches."[220]
Fujimori finished in first place with 17.18% of the vote in the first round held in April 2026, advancing to the runoff against congressman Roberto Sánchez of the left-wing Together for Peru.[221][222][223]
Fujimori secured victory in the presidential runoff held on 7 June by an extremely narrow margin, defeating Sanchez by fewer than 50,000 votes out of more than 18 million ballots cast, according to the final results.[224] Peru's National Electoral Jury was expected to officially declare the winner on 3 July after spending several weeks reviewing disputed ballots. In her first interview as president-elect, when asked about her love life following her divorce, she denied being in a relationship and stated, "I have decided to marry Peru."[225][226]
Public and political image
Fujimori is the principal heir to Fujimorism, the movement built around her father's 1990–2000 government. Political scientists characterize that movement as a form of right-wing populism and, in its origins, competitive or electoral authoritarianism.[227][228] Fujimori has presented her own project as continuous with her father's record on the economy and internal security while distancing herself from its human-rights abuses and corruption. Her campaigns have invoked nostalgia for that record while playing down its abuses.[229]
Fujimori supports free-market economics, socially conservative positions, and a hardline approach to crime and public order. During the 2021 campaign she called for governing with a "heavy hand," argued that democracy "cannot be weak," and proposed withdrawing Peru from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.[187][230]
Descriptions of Fujimori's ideological position vary. In the mid-2010s, she was commonly characterized as center-right to right-wing.[231] Media and academic sources have also described her positions as far-right, authoritarian, and populist.[232] Fujimori has rejected the far-right characterization, describing her movement as center-right in contrast to her rival Rafael López Aliaga, whom she has called far-right, while labeling her leftist opponents the "radical left".[233] Analysts have noted a gap between this self-presentation and her conduct in office, particularly Popular Force's use of its congressional majority against successive presidents.[234]
Her repeated electoral success alongside three runoff defeats has been attributed less to personal popularity than to the party's disciplined organization and to anti-Fujimorismo, a durable "negative partisanship" that political scientists identify as one of Peru's most stable electoral forces.[235]
Electoral history
| Year | Office | Type | Party | Main opponent | Party | Votes for Fujimori | Result | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total | % | Plc. | |||||||||
| 2006 | Representative for Lima | General | Alliance for the Future | N/a | 602,869 | 14.55 | 1st | Won | |||
| 2011 | President of Peru | Force 2011 | Ollanta Humala | Peru Wins | 3,449,595 | 23.55 | 2nd | Runoff | |||
| Runoff | 7,490,647 | 48.55 | 2nd | Lost | |||||||
| 2016 | General | Popular Force | Pedro Pablo Kuczynski | Peruvians for Change | 6,115,073 | 39.86 | 1st | Runoff | |||
| Runoff | 8,555,880 | 49.88 | 2nd | Lost | |||||||
| 2021 | General | Pedro Castillo | Free Peru | 1,930,762 | 13.41 | 2nd | Runoff | ||||
| Runoff | 8,792,117 | 49.87 | 2nd | Lost | |||||||
| 2026 | General | Roberto Sánchez | Together for Peru | 2,877,678 | 17.18 | 1st | Runoff | ||||
| Runoff | 9,223,396 | 50.13 | 1st | Won | |||||||
See also
Notes
- Latin American Spanish: [ˈkejko soˈfia fuxiˈmoɾi (x)iˈɣutʃi, - fuʝiˈmoɾi -].
- In this Hispanic American name, the first or paternal surname is Fujimori and the second or maternal family name is Higuchi.
