(CNN Spanish) – The last three decades in Peru have been marked, for better and worse, by the role of a family deeply linked to the country’s politics: the Fujimori.
From the beginning of his presidency, in 1990, until his resignation, in 2000, passing through the so-called “self-coup” of 1992, Alberto Fujimori dominated Peruvian politics for more than a decade and his influence continued until the day of his death, September 11, 2024.
While Fujimori was in exile in Japan, he was investigated for corruption and human rights violations in Peru, convicted of homicide, serious injuries and aggravated kidnapping. He was finally arrested in Chile and the time came for his daughter Keiko, who burst into politics in 2006 by winning the elections for a Congressional seat.
In recent years, Keiko has been competing in presidential elections in an attempt to bring the Fujimori surname once to the top of politics in Peru: she was the candidate with the most votes in the first round in 2016 and the second in 2011 and 2021, although On all three occasions he ultimately lost the vote in the second round.
Even in July 2024, Keiko Fujimori revealed that her father, who had been released from prison in December 2023, aspired to once again be a presidential candidate. “We have talked about it and decided together,” Keiko Fujimori said in a message posted on her X account.
This is the story of the Fujimori in Peru.
Alberto Fujimori became president of Peru after winning the 1990 elections in the second round, in which he surpassed the writer Mario Vargas Llosa.
In 1992, during his first term, Fujimori intervened all the powers of the State and with the closure of Congress, the Judiciary and the Public Ministry, he concentrated power and governed without restrictions, in what has been called a “self-coup.”
For Fujimori’s opponents, that decision turned a democratic president into a dictator, while for his followers it was what made it possible to end the hyperinflation that was plaguing the country at that time and the terrorist group Sendero Luminoso.
As leader of the Cambio 90 political party, He won the elections again—this time in the first round—in 1995. and governed until 2000 amid numerous controversies and tensions, including the hostage taking carried out by the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) in 1996 at the Japanese Embassy and the violent rescue operation in April 1997.
Fujimori won once again in the 2000 elections, beating Alejandro Toledo in the second round, but after the corruption scandals became public through the well-known “vladivideos”, a collection of home videos made by his advisor Vladimiro Montesinos, he ended up resigning in November of that year.
Fujimori initially went into exile in Japan to avoid investigations against him, but he was arrested in 2005 in Chile and then extradited in 2007 to Peru.
A special court of the Supreme Court of Justice of Peru sentenced him in 2009 to 25 years in prison for crimes against humanity. Fujimori has always denied the charges against him.
These include “his role in the extrajudicial execution of 15 people in the Barrios Altos district of Lima, the forced disappearance and murder of 9 students and a professor from La Cantuta University, and two kidnappings,” according to a report. of Human Rights Watch.
This was evidenced in a report by the Investigative Commission of the presidential administration of Alberto Fujimori, published in 2002. In that document, the Congress of Peru concluded that there were “reasonable indications” to establish that during his term the president “had knowledge, ordered, arranged and/or consented to the criminal activities of the so-called ‘Grupo Colina’”, whose members were authors of the aforementioned events.
Despite everything, Fujimori was pardoned in 2017 by then-president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, although shortly after the Judiciary annulled that benefit.
In December 2023, Fujimori was released from prison, after the Constitutional Court of Peru ordered his immediate release. His release from prison occurred because the high court’s ruling ratified a previous ruling by the same court, issued in March 2022, in which the effects of the humanitarian pardon granted to Fujimori in December 2017 by Kuczynski were restored.
Once released, in July 2024, his daughter Keiko Fujimori revealed that her father aspired to be a presidential candidate once again. “We have talked about it and decided together,” Keiko Fujimori said in a message posted on her X account.
Due to her parents’ divorce, Keiko Fujimori had an early start in Peru’s high politics: she became first lady at the age of 19, during her father’s government.
He was 25 years old when Alberto Fujimori fled Peru in 2000, but he did not accompany his father into exile in Japan and stayed in the country.
Keiko Fujimori finally decided to compete for electoral office for the first time in 2006, when she was the most voted candidate in the Peruvian Congress elections, all while the investigations against her father were advancing.
Early in her career, she decided to compete in the presidential elections, and in 2011, at the age of 36, Keiko Fujimori took second place in the first round, with 23.55% of the votes, compared to Ollanta Humala, who achieved 31.7%.
The second round was, however, much tighter and showed that the Fujimori surname was still strong in Peru. Humala won with 51.45%, against Keiko Fujimori’s 48.55%.
They dictate 36 months of preventive detention against Keiko Fujimori for alleged money laundering
In 2016, Keiko Fujimori reached the peak of her career having been the candidate with the most votes in the first round of the presidential elections.with 39.86%, although he finally lost in the second round against Kuczynski, once again by a tight margin: 50.1% versus 49.8%.
In October 2018, Keiko Fujimori was arrested as part of an investigation for the alleged crime of money laundering, and received a preventive detention order for 36 months. Fujimori always denied these accusations.
She was released in 2019 by the Constitutional Court, which accepted an appeal for habeas corpus while the investigation continues.
However, in June 2024, prosecutor José Domingo Pérez requested the change from the status of appearance with restrictions to preventive detention again for Keiko for having broken the rules of conduct for his appearance with restrictions, according to the Prosecutor’s Office.
A month later, the Judicial Branch of Peru declared a trial against Keiko for allegedly committing the crimes of criminal organization, money laundering, false declaration in administrative proceedings, generic falsehood and obstruction of justice. Fujimori has pleaded not guilty to the accusations.
In 2019, Kenji Fujimori, Keiko’s brother, resigned along with other congressmen from the Fuerza Popular party led by his sister and raised tensions in a family marked by politics.
And, in 2020, a judge again ordered preventive detention for Keiko Fujimori, in this case for her alleged responsibility in money laundering and other crimes related to the Odebrecht case. Although that same year the decision was revoked and she was released again.
In the midst of all this, the candidate competed again in the 2021 presidential elections, although her performance was more modest: she took second place in the first round with the 13.41% of the votes, compared to 18.92% for Pedro Castillo.
Although in the second round, once again, there was a close result, with Castillo’s victory.
In another recent chapter in the history of the Fujimori in Peru, Kenji Fujimori was sentenced to four years in prison, in 2022, for the crime of aggravated influence peddling.
Specifically, Kenji Fujimori and three other congressmen were accused in 2018 of buying votes to avoid the dismissal of the then president, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, while progress was made in the pardon of his father Alberto Fujimori.
But Kenji Fujimori rejected the accusations, claiming that the information had been distorted.
With information from Jimena De La Quintana and María Elena Belaúnde.
