The leader of Fuerza Popular, Keiko Fujimori, will try again for the fourth time in the 2026 elections, in which Peruvians will have elected their ninth president in ten years, in a sign of the political and social instability experienced by a country whose problems it has promised to deal with with an iron fist.
Fujimori presented his candidacy this Sunday for next year’s elections, the first round of which will be held in April. For this occasion, the daughter of former president Alberto Fujimori has counted on Luis Galarreta and Miguel Torres as vice presidents, both visible heads of her party.
In the absence of strong candidates, and in the midst of a free fall in the credit of a ruling class accustomed to going to prison – Fujimori herself spent time behind bars for the alleged illegal financing of her campaigns – the ‘eternal candidate’ promises to be an alternative with an old plan inherited from her father.
Fujimori is in a group of pre-candidates made up of the former mayor of Lima, Rafael López Aliaga; Mario Vizcarra, brother of former president Martín Vizcarra; or the comedian Carlos Álvarez. None, including the leader of Fuerza Popular, reaches 10 percent of voting intention among Peruvians, who prefer 30 percent to vote blank, according to a November survey.
Although it will not be until mid-December when he presents his government plan, he has already promised a tough line to combat violence. Ahead of him will be the challenge of getting rid of the bad image of his party during these years after having been Boluarte’s main support in Congress, which did not remove the president until mid-October due to yet another spike in citizen insecurity.
Despite his failed electoral attempts, which began in 2011, Fujimori has managed to control Congress throughout these years. In the three previous attempts he fell short of achieving the objective, with only differences of a few thousand votes in the 2026 and 2021 elections, the results of which he did not recognize.
Specifically, his three rivals in those elections have ended up in prison for different reasons, the most recent of them, his opponent in 2011, Ollanta Humala, for crimes related to the financing of his campaign. A shadow that also haunts her despite the fact that the Constitutional Court annulled the investigations into money laundering and criminal organization.