After the father, the ex-autocrat Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), it is the turn of the daughter, Keiko, candidate for the presidential election of April 11, to have trouble with the judicial system. After more than two years of investigation, the special anti-corruption prosecutor, José Domingo Pérez, requested 30 years and 10 months in prison, Thursday, March 11, against him, as well as the dissolution of his formation, Fuerza Popular (Popular Force, authoritarian right).
Mme Fujimori, 45, is charged with money laundering, organized crime, obstruction of justice and misrepresentation, in a broad investigation into the funding of her previous election campaigns of 2011 and 2016, involving Odebrecht, the Brazilian construction giant that has paid bribes to many Latin American executives. Forty other people are charged in the case.
Double-edged sword
Immediately, the interested party denounced on her Twitter account a “Persecution” one month before the presidential election. For political analyst Carlos Melendez, the announcement of the special prosecutor’s decision, “Devoid of neutrality” given the political calendar, is a double-edged sword for the candidate. According to him, it may as well give him a boost “To continue in his role of victimization” that“Ward off the undecided”.
Por más que un fiscal quiera ahora meterse en la recta final de la primera vuelta, yo seguiré enfrentando esta pers… https://t.co/VzmZLeR3Ah
The case of the secret financing of the Fujimorist party is known in Peru as the “cocktail affair”. Fuerza Popular is accused of having organized receptions during the 2011 and 2016 campaigns to raise funds from large industrial groups, but whose origin has not been declared. The party would have garnered more than 4.5 million soles (around 1 million euros). According to the investigation, Keiko Fujimori is at the head of a criminal organization dedicated to money laundering and housed within Fuerza Popular.
Alberto Fujimori’s daughter – himself facing justice these days in the case of forced sterilizations during his mandate, and in prison since 2009 for corruption and crimes against human rights – has served in preventive prison in twice: first in 2018 for thirteen months, then in 2020 for fifteen months, before obtaining his release on bail in May, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The announcement of the prosecution does not prevent it, a priori, from competing for the next election, even if this could weaken its “Political right to participation”, says Adriana Urrutia, from the Transparencia association. In an electoral campaign where she is not the favorite, Keiko Fujimori, credited with barely 7 to 8% of the vote, fails to stand out from a swarm of small candidates who all peak in this bracket. She is currently far from reaching her 2016 score, when she missed the presidential chair by a few votes (41,000 votes) against Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (right, 2016-2018). His party had won an overwhelming majority in Congress.
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