Today, the people of Peru are voting in a very important presidential election. Keiko Fujimori, a conservative politician, is trying to win the presidency for the fourth time. She lost the final elections in 2011, 2016, and 2021. This time, she is running against a leftist candidate named Roberto Sánchez. Some polls show that Fujimori has a small lead and might finally win.
A Life Inside Peru’s Crazy Politics
Keiko Fujimori has been in politics for a very long time. When she was only 19 years old, she became Peru’s First Lady because her parents separated. Her father, Alberto Fujimori, was the president of Peru in the 1990s.
Peru has been in a massive political crisis for years. The country has had eight different presidents in the last ten years because of big corruption scandals, bad arguments, and crime.
During a big TV debate, Fujimori told voters that Peru needs “order to live, invest, and work.” She says she is the only person who can save the country from chaos.
In her past campaigns, she was very aggressive and angry. This year, she is acting much calmer and has admitted she made mistakes in the past. She also spent 13 months in jail a few years ago while police investigated her for taking illegal money from a big building company called Odebrecht. However, in January 2025, a court dropped all the charges against her.
Her Father’s Legacy and Heavy Criticism
Even though she is leading in the polls, millions of people in Peru do not like her. Her father, Alberto Fujimori, was a very powerful leader who died in 2024. He helped Peru’s economy and stopped violent terrorist groups, but he also went to prison for breaking human rights laws and killing people.
Many voters fear that if Keiko wins, she will bring back her father’s harsh, dictatorial style of ruling. Last week, thousands of students and human rights groups marched through the streets of Lima shouting “Keiko no va” (Keiko won’t make it) to protest against her.
Her critics also say that she is already secretly running the country through her political party, Fuerza Popular, which controls Peru’s Congress. Human Rights Watch reported that Peru’s Congress has been passing bad laws that help criminals and weaken the power of judges and prosecutors.
Just recently, Peru’s last president, José Jerí, was removed from office because of a corruption scandal called “Chifa-gate.” This leaves Peru completely unstable as voters head to the polls today.
She is Part of the Problem, Not the Solution
Keiko Fujimori claiming she will bring “order” to Peru is a bad joke. She wants voters to forget that her political party has spent the last few years destroying Peru’s democracy from the inside. Her party controls Congress, and they have used that power to protect criminals, weaken judges, and impeach any president they did not like. She helped create the very chaos she is now promising to fix.
Also, we cannot ignore her father’s dark history. She learned politics from a man who used death squads and stole millions of dollars from the state.
Changing her style to look “calm” on TV is just a trick to make people forget her past. Roberto Sánchez might not be a perfect candidate, but electing the daughter of a former dictator who has already spent time in jail for corruption investigations is a massive step backward. If Peruvians elect her today, they aren’t choosing order; they are choosing to hand the country over to a corrupt political mafia.
