She was a first lady at 19. Now she’s making her fourth attempt to win Peru’s presidency

By Claudia Rebaza, CNN

(CNN) — Keiko Fujimori was 19 years old when she made her international debut at a 1994 event as Peru’s first lady.

Dressed in black, the young woman appeared shy and nervous in front of the cameras on the arm of her father, then-President Alberto Fujimori, at the first Summit of the Americas hosted by US President Bill Clinton.

Keiko Fujimori assumed the role after her mother, the late Susana Higuchi, separated from her father following her public denunciation of corruption in his government regarding the handling of international donations. It marked the beginning of Fujimori’s political life.

This Sunday, at the age of 51, the eldest daughter of Peru’s late former president will make her fourth attempt at winning the presidency in a runoff election, despite three consecutive defeats in 2011, 2016 and 2021.

She is facing the leftist candidate Roberto Sánchez, and may be better positioned to win this time, with a slight lead predicted by some pollsters.

Fujimori insists she offers the best alternative to restore security to Peruvians and rescue the country, which has been beset by a constant state of political and institutional crisis that has resulted in eight presidents over the past ten years, and exacerbated by corruption scandals and rising crime and insecurity.

“We need order — order to live, order to invest, order to work,” the conservative candidate reiterated during the presidential debate against Sánchez, who is from the Juntos por el Perú (Together for Peru) party.

“I know that this election is not about me, but about the kind of government and the direction we want for the next five years. Either we want chaos and disorder, or we restore order and work for the future of our country,” Fujimori added.

The heir to Fujimorism became a congresswoman in 2000, founded Fuerza Popular (Popular Force) party, and spent 13 months in prison while under investigation for corruption and allegedly receiving money from the Odebrecht construction company to finance her presidential campaigns — a charge she has repeatedly denied.

In January 2025, a court declared the case against her null and void. Fujimori claims she endured ten years of political persecution.

A campaign with a different tone

Following the dramatic runoff election against former President Pedro Castillo in 2021— which was marred by allegations of voting irregularities — Fujimori has had to acknowledge mistakes in her political career as she seeks to win over voters.

“I know that throughout my political life I have made mistakes. I learned from them, but I also came back stronger,” she said, addressing Peruvians at the end of the final presidential debate.

During this campaign, the right-wing candidate has tried to project a more reserved, calm image with less extreme positions. “It’s true that we were confrontational, and we’ve corrected that,” she said in an interview.

Julio Carrión, a professor of political science and international relations at the University of Delaware, told CNN that Fujimori is making “a more calculated effort to shake off that image of someone who was only trying to fight communism and everything else.”

That position “was a fundamental mistake in 2021 because she framed her campaign as either the fight against communism or the defense of democracy,” the Peruvian politics expert explained to CNN, referring to the 2021 runoff against the leftist Castillo.

After the first round of the 2026 election, Fujimori did not immediately join in the accusations of alleged voting fraud promoted by the Popular Renewal candidate, Rafael López Aliaga, as some had expected.

Her father’s legacy and anti-Fujimori sentiment

Alberto Fujimori’s complex legacy has divided Peru for decades and galvanized the anti-Fujimori vote during her previous campaigns, in which she was seen as a continuation of an authoritarian regime that posed a threat to independent democratic institutions.

Alberto Fujimori served as president from 1990 to 2000. His government pulled the country back from the brink of economic collapse and defeated the Shining Path and MRTA terrorist groups in an internal conflict that left more than 60,000 dead, according to a truth and reconciliation commission.

But his regime was plagued by allegations of human rights violations and corruption, for which he was convicted decades later. He faced four legal proceedings, one of which resulted in a 25-year prison sentence in 2009 for the crimes of aggravated homicide and bodily injury in the Barrios Altos and La Cantuta cases. The former president died in 2024 after several legal battles and public controversy over securing a pardon due to his health condition.

Under the slogan “Keiko no va” – which translates to “Keiko won’t make it” – citizen groups, students, and human rights organizations marched in downtown Lima last Saturday to reject her candidacy.

But the anti-Fujimori vote has not yet proven to be as significant among younger generations, especially those born after the former president was removed from power in 2000, Carrión notes.

Another factor that could benefit Keiko Fujimori this time is that her opponent, Roberto Sánchez, has tried to emulate the image former President Castillo projected — including his famous hat — but seems to have failed. “He lacks the appeal of a distinct identity; he doesn’t have the image of a fresh, people’s candidate that Castillo had in 2021,” Carrión explained.

A heavy burden

But, for her critics, whether Fujimori wins or loses, she shares responsibility for the political instability and corruption the country has experienced in recent years.

As leader of Fuerza Popular, the majority party in the current Congress, Fujimori is accused of governing the country through her party’s congressional caucus, undermining the executive branch’s autonomy, interfering with independent institutions, promoting laws that protect certain interests — such as the so-called pro-crime laws — and orchestrating the impeachment of previous presidents or shielding others.

A report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) found that lawmakers, “rather than strengthening public institutions,” weakened the legal framework and the independence of judges and prosecutors, facilitating the expansion of organized crime. According to HRW, most members of Congress have been driven by “personal interests and the pursuit of self-interest.”

“Her party and she are associated with what has happened in Peru over the last three or four years … So that is a burden she has to bear,” said Carrión. “Roberto Sánchez’s problem is that he has been unable to highlight this weak point of Keiko Fujimori because he has been a member of Congress, because his party in some cases voted with the Fujimori party in favor of certain laws — not always, but in some cases.”

During an interview with CNN, Fujimori denied that she and her party were responsible for the chaos and political crisis in Peru. She offered some self-criticism regarding the role she played in relation to former President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, who resigned in 2018.

“We were very confrontational with Pedro Pablo Kuczynski’s government, but not obstructionist, because we gave them (approved) the most important laws and, above all, broad powers to make reforms … unfortunately, they didn’t know how to take advantage of them,” she told CNN last week.

The dysfunction and alleged corruption in Peruvian politics, which other candidates during this election cycle were also accused of, has made the electorate wary. This was reflected in the first-round results, where no candidate on a longlist of 35 received more than 20% of the vote.

With the second-round vote on Sunday and voting mandatory in the country, many Peruvians remain undecided, while others say they will choose what they consider “the lesser evil,” and some have called for spoiling their ballots, according to the latest polls.

Those who have decided to support Fujimori in her fourth bid say that this time she is better prepared and positioned to assemble a government team that will restore much-needed investor confidence.

“Ms. Fujimori, about whom one may have doubts or even disagreements, has committed to respecting the Constitution, has committed to governing for the term mandated by law, proposes a market economy, attracting private investment, respecting freedoms, and has committed to addressing an agenda – a massive social agenda and a social debt that is absolutely pending in Peru,” Rafael Belaúnde, who ran against Fujimori in the the first round of voting with the center-right Libertad Popular (People’s Liberty) party, told CNN.

Belaúnde asserts that he decided to back the leader of Fuerza Popular and join her technical team after observing a Fujimori who is stronger than she was five years ago and in light of what he calls “the danger that Sánchez poses to the economy.”

More than thirty years after she began political life, Fujimori may have a shot at being the country’s ninth president in a decade.

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