In the capital, the results are even more critical. In 2014, candidate Alberto Sánchez Aizcorbe obtained a meager 2.7% of the votes. Four years later, Diethell Columbus – today a representative for Lima – also reached 2.7% and in the 2022 process, Fujimori resigned from competing.
In January of that year, the leader of Fujimori had presented César Combina as her group’s pre-candidate for the city. “I have decided to accept the invitation of Fuerza Popular,” responded the former congressman.
But the projections were not encouraging at all. In February, Ipsos Peru polls gave Combina a discreet 3% of the preferences. Two months later, Fuerza Popular abandoned that electoral race.
“Fuerza Popular declines to participate in the elections for mayor of Lima. With no further condition than preserving our democracy, we will support a candidacy that manages to integrate those of us who believe that Lima should not fall into the hands of populism or the left.” Keiko Fujimori tweeted on April 22.
The result has not been better in the districts of the capital either: to date, Fuerza Popular has not appointed a single mayor. For the elections on October 4, it presented lists in only 10 districts, the minimum number in its electoral history.
The scenario is similar outside of Metropolitan Lima: this year, Fujimori only presented nine GORE candidates, one more than the minimum required by law to avoid losing its registration, also the lowest number in its party history.
Likewise, it will compete in only 44 provinces, which represents coverage of only 22.4% of the jurisdictions that make up the country. At the district level, there will be 221 applicants (13% national coverage).
The Commerce He tried to communicate with Fuerza Popular spokespersons, but at the close of this report there was no response. Representative Columbus excused himself from participating, because due to his status as authority he must maintain neutrality during an ongoing electoral process.
In 2011, in its first general election as a political party, Fuerza Popular not only contested the runoff with Keiko Fujimori as its candidate, but its bench became the first opposition force in Congress, with 37 of the 130 seats.
Three years later, Fujimori tried to strengthen its political presence at the regional and local level. To date, 2014 is the electoral year in which he presented the most subnational candidacies: 18 candidates for GORE, 109 for provincial mayors and 750 for district mayors, and in Lima, he applied in 32 districts.
Fujimori’s role in that electoral contest was leading. “I have had the opportunity to travel. (…) I have personally traveled to 15 regions of our country,” he said in an interview with RPP on October 8, 2014, days after election day.
Although the results were not auspicious, they are so far the best in its history in regional and local politics.
“Above all, we have had the responsibility of looking for leaders, of opening, of making an opening of the party, of looking for regional Fujimori and independent leaders to give an option to the citizens.“Fujimori highlighted in that interview.
To understand how electoral politics works at the subnational scale of Peru, it is key to understand regional and local leadership.
“It is very difficult for national parties to recruit good candidates, because they do not want to go with a (political) brand that could discredit them, they prefer not to associate with a well-known national brand,” explains Mauricio Zavaleta, political scientist at the University of Pittsburgh and author of the book “Coalitions of independents. The unwritten rules of electoral politics” (IEP, 2014).
In the period 2022 – 2026, for example, regional movements govern in 14 of the 25 GORE (56%) and in 122 of the country’s 196 provinces (62%).
In the particular case of Fuerza Popular – Zavaleta adds – the anti-vote it carries complicates its ability to attract viable candidates in the interior. “If you are someone with ambitions in Cusco, for example, it would be political suicide to go with Fuerza Popular,” he added.
In the north, an area with a significant Fujimori presence in the general elections, there is another obstacle. “The brand there can be neutral and even positive, but they don’t want to go to Lima to ask for things, there is an element of autonomy: no one wants to consult in Lima about how to proceed in their region,” concludes the specialist.
