Alberto Fujimori is returning to the top stage in Peru. The former president, who first came to power in 1990 and remained in office for ten years, announced yesterday, Sunday, June 30, his decision to run in the 2026 presidential elections.

Until last week, rumors had been growing in Peruvian politics about the return of Fujimori (born in Santiago de Surco in 1938). His announcement to join the Fuerza People’s Party, founded by his daughter Keiko (Lima, 1975), dispelled all doubts. The former president returned to the electoral stage: “Today I confirm my decision and willingness to take all risks. “I want to work again for all Peruvians,” he wrote on his X account, where he has more than 113,000 followers..

Alberto Kenia Fujimori Inomoto will be 88 years old when the electoral process begins, and is currently hospitalized with a broken hip after a fall in his room. That is why he said he is in a local clinic awaiting surgery, after which he is “sure” he will recover “successfully,” adding that he “really wants to go home to move forward.” Moving forward means, according to the Peruvian press, a return to power.

After the publication of the letter, his daughter, when asked in an interview with Channel N about whether the ex-president was going to run for president or for the Senate, replied that “all possibilities are open.”

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“Later, within the family, he will tell us what he wants. Then, obviously, these procedures will be determined in the party’s institutional bodies,” he explained, acknowledging that his father is recovering from a recent fall and has other health problems.

While mainstream observers claim Fujimori cannot appear because he is convicted and has an unpaid civil fine, the Fuerza Popular leader stressed that her father is “innocent of the charges for which he was sentenced.”

“But beyond my position and my condition, there is a legal debate. I understand. I have followed it. (There are) positions in favor of the candidacy (…) or positions against (…). I am not a lawyer, so it would be wise for me to wait until this discussion is further clarified. And it is the electoral authorities who will finally determine this possibility,” he said.

The former leader of the country was released in December 2023, where he had been since 2007, serving a 25-year sentence for the murder of dozens of civilians. In 2017, he took advantage of a humanitarian pardon granted by then-President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski as his legal team argued he had health problems due to his advanced age, but justice overthrew him months later before a final decision was made last year.

In addition to his 25-year prison sentence, Fujimori faces another criminal trial along with several of his health ministers for the forced sterilization of nearly 350,000 women and 25,000 men from various indigenous communities during his rule. He did not repent of his crimes and did not pay civil compensation, which the Attorney General’s Office estimated at 57 million soles (14 million euros).

Throughout years of legal proceedings (the Constitutional Court ordered his release despite a request from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to stay the measure), human rights groups warned of the seriousness of his crimes in the decision to release him.

Europe Press