Alberto Fujimori announced that he will be the Fuerza Popular candidate for the presidency of the Republic, despite the fact that he interrupted his 25-year prison sentence for a humanitarian pardon.
The former dictator is about to turn 86 years old and, despite the oncological disease he suffers from and the surgical intervention he underwent, his supporters assure that will recover his health and begin his political campaign.
The spokesman for People’s ForceMiguel Torres said that it is in “the DNA of Fujimorism” to fight against the obstacles that come its way, alluding to the impediment that he has Alberto Fujimori to apply, because he was convicted.
Alberto Fujimori’s candidacy has the support of the leader of Fuerza Popular, Keiko Fujimoriwho on several occasions in the past asked for his father to be pardoned due to his delicate state of health.
Keiko Fujimori asked Ollanta Humala to pardon her father
The first time we heard about the possibility of a humanitarian pardon being granted to Alberto Fujimori was in the year 2012when Ollanta Humala was the one in the Government Palace.
On October 10, 2012, the Fujimori brothers; Keiko, Hiro, Sachi and Kenji; approached Humala with a letter in which they asked for speed in the pardon from his father and that he resolve it without political passions.
Speaking to the press, Keiko Fujimoriwho had just lost the elections to Humala, explained that Alberto Fujimori was “in poor health.”
“My father’s health has been deteriorating in recent years, as is public knowledge. Certificates of the pathologies have been attached. He was diagnosed with carcinoma in situ, then infiltrating carcinoma and then dysplasia, which are precancerous lesions,” she argued.
The response of Ollanta Humala The announcement came a few months later, in June 2013. Humala’s Justice Minister, Daniel Figallo, reported at a press conference that the Presidential Pardons Commission had evaluated the case and recommended not granting Fujimori a pardon. This announcement was later ratified by Humala.
In July 2016, the Presidential Pardons Commission again received a request for a pardon for Alberto Fujimori, as there were only a few days left before his term ends, Ollanta Humala responded to this issue and said that he would not get Fujimori out of jail.
“I’m not going to pardon him, I’ll tell you that clearly,” he declared in what was his last interview as president of Peru.
After these statements, Fujimori’s fate was in the hands of the person who would assume the presidency of Peru in the coming days, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski.
PPK and the pardon to Fujimori that saved him from impeachment
A few days after taking office, in July 2016, President-elect Pedro Pablo Kuczynski indicated that he would not sign any pardon in favor of Alberto Fujimori.
In 2017, Keiko Fujimori She spoke out on Twitter and demanded that President Kuczynski pardon her father. “He has been evaluating the case for months, the time has come to act. Make use of your power as president. Pardon him,” wrote the leader of Fuerza Popular.
Finally, in December 2017, after being saved from impeachment and in the midst of a strong confrontation with Congress, which had an overwhelming Fujimorist majority, PPK announced the pardon for Alberto Fujimori.
A few months later, after the release of the ‘Mamanivideos’ It was learned that there was an agreement between the minor of the Fujimori to save Kuczynski from being impeached.
Keiko Fujimori accused her political enemies of annulling her father’s pardon
In 2018, the Supreme Court of Justice annulled Alberto Fujimori’s pardon and ordered his prompt arrest. Following this announcement, the former dictator was rushed to the clinic for a heart condition.
Fujimori’s lawyer, Miguel Pérez Arroyo, requested that the arrest warrant be suspended due to “an imminent risk of sudden death if he were to return to a prison.”
Keiko Fujimori, for her part, said that her father’s return from prison was a case of “persecution and cruelty on the part of his political enemies.”
Now, almost six years later and with Fujimori free, the requests for pardon and the illnesses he suffered from seem to be a thing of the past, because, as Elio Riera, his lawyer, said, his release from prison had an immediate effect on his recovery.
“It is a necessary effect to regain freedom and, by extension, to have an improvement,” he stressed.