Who was Alberto Fujimori and why did his political figure cause so much commotion until the very last day?

The former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori He made a name for himself in the political history of Peru, the country he ruled with a strong hand throughout the 1990s and into the early 21st century.

The judicial processes Corruption and human rights violations kept him tied up to return to political life – where he did not lack political capital and followers who saw him as a viable figure to regain power in the country.

His arrest during a trip to Chile in 2005 was a cold shower for Fujimori, who already saw some of his top collaborators involved in legal proceedings.

Japan, where he had gone into self-exile after leaving the presidency in 2000, refused to hand over to Peruvian justice the former professor and university rector, who comes from a Japanese dynasty in Peru. A legal prohibition in the Asian power prevents the extradition of its citizens and Fujimori had Japanese nationality through his parents.

In 2005, Chile became his path to prison. The South American country arrested him and he waited for the long extradition process until handing him over to the Peruvian justice system in 2007, to face criminal charges, the same ones that two years later led to him facing an unusual sentence for a former Peruvian president.

Was sentenced to 25 years in prison for being the mastermind behind 25 murders carried out by a clandestine squad of soldiers in two massacres that occurred during his terms in office between 1990 and 2000.

During his administration, the military acted with a high degree of impunity – according to its detractors – strictly following a national security policy established to confront the terrorist group Sendero Luminoso, which had bled Peru dry in an unprecedented internal conflict in the country.

And in addition to that first criminal case, three more legal proceedings were filed against him, in which he was found guilty of corruption and embezzling at least $13.6 million.

The questioned freedom

Sixteen years after his imprisonment, former President Fujimori benefited in 2023 from a resolution by the Constitutional Court of Peru ordering his “immediate” release.

Although he had obtained a presidential pardon in 2017 to regain his freedom, it was not possible amid the political turbulence in Peru. At that time, the same court that would later give the green light to his release then required his detention after reconsidering the arguments presented during the process by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR).

Upon his release, the country’s highest court ruled that the IACHR lacked jurisdiction over the case and granted him freedom when the former president was already ill with a possible cancer diagnosis.

Why did his figure become so deeply rooted in Peruvian politics?

Alberto Fujimori, whose birthday is celebrated on the same day as Peru’s Independence Day, July 28, made a surprise entry into Peruvian politics by unexpectedly winning the 1990 general elections with a program of economic reforms to pull the country out of the endemic crisis and the widespread terror generated by the Shining Path in large areas of the country.

His plans were welcomed by international organizations such as the World Bank Group and other financing bodies, which saw in the industrial engineer, with Japanese discipline, a commitment to the economic reforms necessary to address the financial crisis, in addition to the internal support of the military caste and economic elites.

However, critics of his administration began to point out the “authoritarian practices” of the president, who in 1992 proceeded to dissolve Congress, in a self-coup that is still known today as “the Fujimorato.”

The stabilization of the currency with the Peruvian Nuevo Sol, with a stable exchange rate against the dollar, the booming foreign economic investment in the country, with more employment and economic growth indicators catapulted his image as an effective president.

The actions of the security forces to crush Shining Path and reduce it to insignificance with the capture of its leaders, who were given severe sentences, also played in its favour.

The lack of checks and balances in the country under an authoritarian government gave way to the first abuses that, when uncovered, generated scandals such as the forced sterilization of indigenous people and the repression against the terrorist cells of the Shining Path that destroyed innocent lives, including the 25 massacred.

But a large part of the population saw Alberto Fujimori as the figure who brought stability to the country and, above all, economic growth during his administration, which had its problems due to the processes of privatization of public companies, which were not foreign to the rest of Latin America.

By the time he reached a third term in 2000, after being re-elected in 1995, the opposition had already grown stronger and the elections took place in an environment of little transparency that the opposition described as “fraudulent.”

These events increased the pressure on his administration with multiple allegations of corruption, accusations of crimes against humanity that concluded with the memorable revelation of the videos and audios of his right-hand man and spy chief, Vladimiro Montesinos.

His memoirs in “The Chinese Word”

In his memoirs “The Chinese word, the intruderWritten in prison, Alberto Fujimori tells the story of his own life marked by perseverance and discipline, and told in a colloquial way, addresses the drive of his family and his time at the pinnacle of power.

Although the essence of the book, according to the author, is to “unearth the truth and show it,” and Fujimori says in the text that “it is aimed especially at young people, who will be amazed by everything they did not know about the country that their parents and grandparents suffered.”

The former president urges readers to draw “their own conclusions” about the political ups and downs of his country. “Alberto Fujimori has only been a ruler, the son of hard-working Japanese immigrants, identified with the dreams of progress and happiness of the majority of the citizens of the country that his parents gave him and that he continues to love from prison,” he said when writing the stories from behind bars.

He said that even his opponents are aware that his administration brought about a substantial change in the country’s progress. “Especially the reconstruction of a national economy devastated by populism, terrorism and corruption, and achievements such as peace with Ecuador, and a Constitution like the one from 1993, which has laid the foundations for a new Peru.”

A late return?

Alberto Fujimori’s children tried to take up the baton left by their father, who from prison maintained a curious relationship with his supporters through letters, who saw the possibility and hope of getting him out of jail to give him back his lost powers.

Keiko Fujimori, the firstborn, is the most notable figure of the clan, who, after his father, has tried three times to win the presidency in the second round, but failed, but with a strong vote. His youngest son Kenji has also appeared in the Peruvian Congress.

The Fuerza Popular Party has 21 seats in the current legislature – which ends in 2026 – and is the largest party in the Peruvian political arena, with 130 seats, and also has allies across the political spectrum.

With the return of his father to freedom, it has been his children who They have passed on the information to their followersthey have accompanied him to hospitals, they have announced the results of medical procedures and in the worst moments they have made known the diagnoses, such as the cancer that has defeated him.

But above all, they supported the free patriarch to take up the baton and run again in the 2026 presidential elections, but not before navigating the ups and downs of an unstable political and judicial scene.

In July, Keiko announced that her father would run for president of Peru under the banner of her Fuerza Popular party in 2026, despite the fact that current law prohibits the candidacy of convicted persons who have not complied with the payment of civil reparations.

Amidst all this back and forth, Alberto Fujimori was last seen in public on September 5 when he was leaving a private clinic in Lima.

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