With the departure of former dictator Alberto Fujimori, Popular Force (FP) not only loses its historical leader, but also the one who was supposed to be its presidential candidate in the 2026 general elections. As is known, on July 15, his daughter Keiko Fujimori affiliated him and announced him as a candidate, Although most jurists agreed that the pardon did not entitle him to apply. In the fujimorismor they turned a deaf ear and left the decision on the electoral future of their historic leader in the hands of the electoral bodies – which Congress seeks to capture.
But as we know, on September 11 there was an unexpected turn: the former dictator died.
With his absence, There will be no other alternative for the presidency in Fuerza Popular (FP) that is not Keiko Fujimori. You can’t look at his family environment either, because his brother Kenji Fujimori He is far removed from politics. This is how uncertainty arises about what awaits a Fujimorism without Fujimori in the face of the next general elections. The political and electoral weight of his memory is unknown, and his daughter will be able to channel it into a possible fourth nomination.
Fujimorism without Keiko, the natural candidate of the Peruvian right
The historian and political analyst Daniel Parodi He believes that “perhaps we should think about A Fujimorism not only without Alberto Fujimori, but also without Keiko Fujimori”. “In Fujimorism, since Alberto governed, a dynastic caudillo logic was imposed in which the father had to be succeeded by the daughter. But today the spectrum of the right is bigger than Fujimorism itself,” he reflected.
He Anthropologist Eduardo Ballon He agrees and recalls that, even before the death of the former dictator, Fujimori Higuchi had ceased to be the natural candidate of the right. And without the presence of her father, Ballón added, “she loses an important piece that allowed her to move in a way that is distant from how she will have to do now if she intends, as many of us believe, to be the right’s natural candidate.” presidential candidate“It is a space that is not easy (for Fujimorism),” he said.
Electoral setback and proliferation of competition
In the last decade, Fuerza Popular lost support at the polls. In the 2016 elections, it obtained 32.64% of valid votes in the first round and managed to have 73 congressmen elected, a historic representation that it did not know how to take advantage of. In 2021, it barely managed to obtain 10.99% of valid votes and the entry of 24 parliamentarians.
The proliferation of political parties in this electoral process generated points for and against. On the one hand, Fujimori Higuchi was able to go to the second round with the lowest number of votes he obtained in the three times he ran for president. And on the other hand, he got through that stage having two of his rivals – Rafael Lopez AliagOh Hernando De Soto – hot on his heels.
By 2026, competition would be greater. The excessive proliferation of political organizations – 35 registered and 25 in the process of being registered – could cause fragmentation of votes in the first round.
Political scientist and professor at the Antonio Ruiz de Montoya University, Alonso Cardenass, stresses that an electoral scenario with 60 political groups allows a presidential candidate with a reduced percentage of votes to go to the second round. In that situation, he added, it should be enough for the daughter of the former dictator Fujimorism’s hard vote. “There is a hard core of supporters who, with a few votes, can get Keiko Fujimori to the second round,” said political scientist Cárdenas.
But in reality it would not be so easy. The anthropologist Ballón recalls that during this period, Fujimori Higuchi formed a political apparatus where he has basic control, he eliminated the competition that could have been his brother Kenji and some figures of historical Fujimorism ended up marginalized, but that did not strengthen her electorally. “There is a clientele base that is linked to Alberto Fujimoribut it is clear that she has a dose of capital that at this point is less than it could have been,” he commented.
Evaluating the daughter’s role
In the future, explained Cárdenas, with the absence of the former dictator, the Albertist elector will also evaluate the role that his daughter had in recent years, since the pardon and their family relationship. “There is a perception that she used her father. She enrolled him in the party and Mr. Fujimori, due to his age, should have been resting,” he said.
Another point to be analyzed, according to Cárdenas, is Fujimori Higuchi’s position regarding the release of her father. “It is widely documented that she refused to allow her father to be released via a pardon and expelled her brother Kenji from the party,” he recalled.
During the government of Pedro Pablo Kuczynski the former dictator was pardoned. Although he welcomed the release of his historic leader, National Executive Committee (CEN) of Fuerza Popular, disagreed with the way that decision was made and then, by disseminating the “Mamanivideos”denounced that there was a negotiation between the PPK administration and a group of congressmen led by Kenji Fujimori, to approve the release in exchange for voting against a presidential vacancy.
In 2018, the Supreme Court declared the pardon null and void. Four years later, the Constitutional Court overturned that decision and decided that he be released. But the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled against it. The release was only made possible with a new composition of the TC in December of last year.
Fujimori’s period of freedom lasted nine months. He died on the same day that terrorist leader Abimael Guzmán died and during the regime of Dina Boluarteinvestigated for human rights violations against protesters.
Fujimori’s death is not the end of Fujimorism
His departure, however, according to analysts consulted by this newspaper, does not mean the death of the Fujimorism.
“Fujimorism is the contemporary version of clientelism and patrimonialism that took root in the country even before the founding of the Republic. Seen in this light, it is very difficult for this political culture to disappear, especially since during the Fujimori decade the conditions were created to dismantle the precarious existing institutionality,” said Parodi.
Cárdenas agrees with this view because he believes that the practices of the Fujimori period are still latent. “This way of governing with a heavy hand and controlling institutions, corrupting public and private actors and disregarding the human rights system and indolence, is still in force. Fujimori may have died, but Fujimorism as a way of governing continues,” he lamented.
Ballón warns that what is coming is a campaign by Fujimorism to sanctify the figure of the former dictator. “And to make it a central and historical part of this country in the last 50 years. It is clear that Keiko Fujimori will seek to recover for herself some elements and forms of her father’s discourse, while keeping her distance,” he analyzed. “And that works in a country where memory is fragile,” he added.
But, in the midst of the atomization of the right, it would not be the only one. “Fujimorism did not leave us a Fujimori, it left us hundreds of little Fujimoris (…). And this is our contemporary politics,” concludes Parodi.
Fujimorism and its official image with Dina Boluarte
Fuerza Popular is the only political organization that, voting as a block, rejected the admission to debate of seven motions for presidential vacancy against Dina Boluarte. In addition, it is one of the groups that supported declaring inadmissible a constitutional complaint against Boluarte for the deaths in the protests of 2022 and 2023.
Keiko Fujimori’s political party and its allies in Congress have been supporting a regime with 5% approval rating.
In the 2021 election campaign, Boluarte was a staunch anti-Fujimorist. Three years later, she opened the doors of the Museo de la Nación and the Government Palace to Fuerza Popular to pay tribute to the former dictator she had previously denounced.
