Peru's political landscape lurches rightward again as Keiko Fujimori, daughter of the imprisoned former dictator, promises mass deportations of Venezuelan migrants and a direct alliance with Washington if she wins the presidency.
The three-time presidential candidate, now launching her fourth attempt at Lima's Government Palace, unveiled a platform Wednesday that reads like a greatest hits of right-wing populism: expel undocumented immigrants, align with Donald Trump's administration, and adopt what she calls "zero tolerance" toward migration from crisis-torn Venezuela.
"We will work hand in hand with President Trump to confront the threats facing our hemisphere," Fujimori declared at a campaign rally in Lima, according to AFP reporting. "It's time for Peru to recover its sovereignty and security."
The irony is impossible to miss. Fujimori's father, Alberto Fujimori, was himself the son of Japanese immigrants who fled poverty for Peru. The elder Fujimori governed for a decade before fleeing to Japan amid corruption scandals, then returned only to be imprisoned for human rights abuses during his authoritarian rule. He died last year while serving his sentence.
Now his daughter campaigns on expelling those seeking the same opportunities her grandparents once did.
A Regional Rightward Shift
But Fujimori's rhetoric isn't happening in isolation. It's part of a broader pattern across Latin America, where right-wing candidates from Argentina to El Salvador have seized power by promising iron-fist responses to migration, crime, and economic anxiety.
Peru hosts more than 1.5 million Venezuelan refugees, the second-largest population after Colombia. Most fled the Maduro regime's economic collapse and political repression - the same authoritarian tactics Fujimori's father once employed. They work informal jobs, send remittances home, and navigate a country increasingly hostile to their presence.
Fujimori's pledge to "recover Peruvian jobs for Peruvians" echoes Trump's "America First" nationalism, transposed to a country where xenophobia toward darker-skinned migrants from the north mixes with class resentment and genuine economic frustration.
Democracy's Fragile Thread
This is Fujimori's fourth presidential campaign. She lost in 2011, 2016, and 2021 - each time by narrower margins. In 2021, she came within 44,000 votes of defeating leftist Pedro Castillo, then spent months claiming fraud, though international observers found none.
Castillo later imploded in corruption scandals and was impeached. His successor, Dina Boluarte, faces approval ratings in the single digits after deadly protests against her government. Peru has cycled through six presidents in six years, each administration collapsing under the weight of graft accusations, street mobilizations, or both.
In this chaos, Fujimori positions herself as the strongwoman who can restore order. Never mind that she herself faces corruption charges for allegedly receiving illegal campaign donations from Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht. Never mind the authoritarian legacy her surname carries.
The Peru election isn't until 2026, but Fujimori's early positioning around migration and alignment with Trump signals where she believes the political winds are blowing - and where Latin America's democratic experiments remain most vulnerable.
Twenty countries, 650 million people, and yes, we're more than your neighbor's problems. But we're also watching our own democracies strain under the weight of the very populism that once promised to save them. Somos nuestra propia historia - and right now, that history rhymes a little too much with the past.
