LIMA, Peru (AP) — Former president Alberto Fujimoriwho was pardoned in December after being convicted of corruption and responsibility for the murder of 25 people, plans to run for Peru’s presidency for a fourth time in 2026, his eldest daughter said Sunday.
“My father and I talked together and decided that he will be the presidential candidate,” Keiko Fujimorileader of the right-wing Fuerza People’s Party, on social networks.
Despite the announcement, Peruvian law prohibits anyone found guilty of corruption from running for president or vice president.
Fujimori, who was convicted in 2009 of involvement in the killings of 25 Peruvians during his 1992 administration, has three corruption convictions and owes the Treasury Department about $15 million, according to the attorney general’s office, which specializes in corruption crimes. The former president was extradited from Chile in 2007 and served time in a Peruvian prison until last December.
Fujimori, 85, joined his daughter’s party in June, posting a video of the event featuring him with Keiko Fujimori, along with the phrase: “The founder of Fujimoriism takes his place at Fuerza Popular.”
Keiko Fujimori, 49, has run unsuccessfully for president three times. On July 1, a trial against her began on charges of money laundering, for which the prosecution is demanding a 30-year prison sentence.
Alberto Fujimori, who ruled with increasingly authoritarian rule from 1990 to 2000, has begun to rebuild his image on social media since his release from prison in December thanks to a 2017 presidential pardon revived by Peru’s Constitutional Court.
Fujimori reported in May that he had been diagnosed with a new tumor on his tongue that was believed to be malignant. In July, he underwent hip replacement surgery after a fall, his daughter said.