It has been almost seven months since former autocrat Alberto Fujimori was released from prison thanks to a questionable decision by the Constitutional Court that revalidated a pardon in his favor for “humanitarian reasons.” In all this time, the nikkei The president who governed Peru in the 1990s went from absolute silence and assuring that he was “away from politics” to taking selfies with followers in shopping malls and undertaking a rewriting of his mandate on social networks. The ground was being paved for what happened a couple of weeks ago: Fujimori appeared in a video joining Fuerza Popular, the party led by his daughter Keiko, thus decreeing his official return to politics at 85 years old.
But it has been the statements of his daughter Keiko in the last few hours that have definitely revealed the ambitions of the patriarch. “I would love for it to be [candidato presidencial]”But that decision does not depend on me, but exclusively on my father. It will be first he who expresses his will and it will be the party authorities that ratify a position of this nature,” he said this Sunday in a Sunday program.
What the heiress said can have several interpretations: that the former autocrat does indeed have presidential aspirations for 2026, even though the laws do not allow it – according to the Constitution, any person convicted in the first instance of a willful crime cannot run for elected office -; that he is preparing his candidacy for the next Congress or that he assumes to be the pawn that the Orange Party needs to reach the Palace, endorsing his wealth of votes. Let us remember that in the last three elections, Keiko lost by very few votes.
“The militants are very enthusiastic and the Fujimorist people have closed ranks with great joy upon seeing my father register in the party. I think that advancing the possibility [de la carrera presidencial] It is to anticipate many facts; all possibilities are open. [Él] He is absolutely lucid, even though he has been suffering from illnesses for years, but he has great strength,” Keiko Fujimori stressed, with the cunning of an experienced politician who resorts to ambiguity, without ceasing to show his intentions.
The context of her statements is quite peculiar: Alberto Fujimori has been hospitalized since Wednesday after suffering a fall at home and this Tuesday he will undergo surgery for a hip fracture. And this Monday the final stage of the investigation against Keiko for alleged money laundering, in the so-called Cocktails case, began. While the father is about to enter the operating room, the daughter is entering the courts.
“It will be a tough, difficult and risky test, but we will get through it little by little. Later, within the family, he will first tell us his wish. [de su futuro político]and then the institutional bodies of the party will determine the procedures,” explained the head of Fuerza Popular regarding the surgical intervention that will be performed on the politician considered the seventh most corrupt president in the world according to the 2004 Global Corruption Report.
Alberto Fujimori, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison for the Barrios Altos and La Cantuta massacres, responded in a letter in his own handwriting about whether he will be a candidate for the Presidency or the Senate, a query sent by the newspaper Trade. Although without details, the answer says a lot. “Today I reaffirm my decision and willingness to assume all the risks. I want to go back to work for all Peruvians,” he wrote in the letter that he shared on his social networks, where he has been quite active in recent months.
As to whether the law will prevent the former autocrat from running, Keiko Fujimori has asked that “the right to elect and be elected” be respected. Various criminal lawyers point out that Fujimori was not released because he was exonerated but because of a presidential pardon and that, in addition, he has not yet paid civil compensation for other crimes amounting to 15.5 million dollars. “I am not a lawyer, therefore, it is prudent for me to wait for this debate to continue to be elucidated and it will be the electoral bodies that will finally define this possibility. What we hope is that his right to elect and be elected is respected.” The Fujimorist escalation advances.
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