Keiko Fujimori has served as the leader of the Fujimorist political party Popular Force since 2010, and was a congresswoman representing the Lima Metropolitan Area, from 2006 to 2011.
53 Facts About Keiko Fujimori
2.
Keiko Fujimori ran for president in the 2011,2016, and 2021 elections, but was defeated each time in the second round of voting.
3.
Keiko Sofia Fujimori Higuchi was born on 25 May 1975 in the Jesus Maria district of Lima, the capital of Peru.
4.
Keiko Fujimori's parents are Japanese Peruvians; her father is former President of Peru Alberto Keiko Fujimori, who was elected in the 1990 Peruvian general election, and her mother is Susana Higuchi.
5.
The cost of Fujimori and her sibling's studies in the United States, estimated to be about $918,000 in total, was reportedly funded by Chief of the National Intelligence Service Vladimiro Montesinos, with his secretary Matilde Pinchi Pinchi saying Keiko personally received money at SIN facilities while General Julio Salazar would travel to New York to deliver funds on occasion.
6.
Keiko Fujimori would go on to graduate from the university in May 1997, completing her studies in Business Administration.
7.
In 1994, Keiko Fujimori's father stripped her mother of her title of First Lady of Peru with the intent of silencing her after she accused him publicly and in the Peruvian Judicial Branch of kidnapping, torture and corruption, this led to the two separating in the same year, taking with them the last vestiges of her mother's titles.
8.
One day shortly after, Keiko Fujimori received a call from her father while studying in the United States, with the president asking his daughter to attend a formal dinner in Miami, though this quickly turned into a multi-day trip.
9.
On 23 August 1994, Keiko Fujimori stopped her studies at Stony Brook and returned to Peru, where her father appointed her as First Lady of Peru, the youngest first lady in the Americas.
10.
In 1998, as her father intended to run for an unprecedented and at that point unconstitutional third term, Keiko Fujimori came out in a strong declaration against her father's plan, supporting a plan made by the opposition.
11.
Shortly after the scandal broke, Keiko Fujimori had asked her father to not renounce anything and to return to Peru to defend himself before a court of law.
12.
Keiko Fujimori was forced to leave the Government Palace of Peru on 21 November 2000 after the Congress of Peru officially vacated her father Alberto's position as president of Peru.
13.
Keiko Fujimori moved to the United States in 2002 to further pursue her business career, studying at Columbia University.
14.
The newlyweds returned to New York where Keiko Fujimori would continue her MBA studies.
15.
Keiko Fujimori's father arrived in Santiago de Chile in preparation of his return to Peru to run anew as a presidential candidate on 6 November 2005 and was arrested shortly after by Interpol.
16.
On 6 January 2006, Keiko Fujimori managed to get her new party included in the Peruvian Registry of Political Organizations.
17.
Keiko Fujimori received the most votes of any congressional candidate that year, with 602,869 votes, more than three times more than the runner up, Mercedes Cabanillas; breaking the national record for most votes received by a legislator up to that point.
18.
Keiko Fujimori authored a law that restricts penitentiary benefits for those who commit serious offenses, and another law that obligates judges to give the highest sanctions to repeat offenders.
19.
On 13 January 2008, Keiko Fujimori announced the creation of a new political party, Fuerza 2011, that would nominate a candidate for 2011.
20.
Keiko Fujimori was criticized for being absent from 500 sessions of Congress, according to the publication La Republica.
21.
Keiko Fujimori's campaign was fundamentally built upon a defense of her father's government.
22.
Keiko Fujimori recognized "errors" and "excesses" committed during her father's terms and reminded the public of her opposition to her father's third term.
23.
Keiko Fujimori admitted to having received 10,000 dollars from two convicted women who, according to Fujimori, were victims of persecution.
24.
Kuczynski and Castaneda subsequently declared their support for Keiko Fujimori while Toledo declared for Humala.
25.
Keiko Fujimori had received the majority of her support from the business community, conservatives, the majority of the press, liberal professionals, small businesses, the church, and much of the Lima middle class.
26.
Keiko Fujimori's strategy began with a small change as on 29 June 2012, she announced a new name for her party: Fuerza Popular, a change that officially took effect 4 January 2013.
27.
Between 2011 and 2016, Keiko Fujimori intended to strengthen her party, travelling across the country to mitigate the hesitancy many still had toward her because of her connection to Alberto Keiko Fujimori, a factor that had been decisive in her 2011 defeat.
28.
Keiko Fujimori dedicated herself to cutting the association, including by removing corrupt members of her party and reaching out to youth.
29.
On 4 December 2015, Keiko Fujimori officially announced her candidacy for president in the 2016 elections.
30.
Keiko Fujimori's running mates were ex-minister of agriculture and irrigation Jose Chilmper Ackerman for first vice president and Vladimiro Huaroc Portocarrero, ex-regional governor of Junin as the second vice president.
31.
Keiko Fujimori outlined six "pillars", among them defense of institutions of a higher law, independence of powers, protection of human rights, support for limiting the armed forces, a free market, tax cuts, incentives for small businesses, use of emergency state funds to kickstart the economy, increase in supply of government bonds, and expansion of electrical and internet infrastructure in rural areas.
32.
Keiko Fujimori was not free of accusations as the JNE requested her removal from the election after it came to light that she had received donations larger than those allowed by the election laws.
33.
Keiko Fujimori countered that the accusations against her were "irresponsible" and alleged insufficient evidence.
34.
Keiko Fujimori stated that she would not run for another election if she won the presidency.
35.
Keiko Fujimori supported the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, responsible for detailing the human rights violations committed between 1980 and 2000 by both the Shining Path Insurgency and the government, for the first time.
36.
Keiko Fujimori continued to be the favorite according to polls, but her campaign suffered a major setback: as the election approached, accusations surfaced of connections between drug trafficking and Congressman Joaquin Ramirez, Secretary General of Fuerza Popular and one of Keiko Fujimori's principle aids.
37.
Keiko Fujimori's image continue to take a hit, primarily due to fears that the country would turn into a narco-state with her election, fears that were stoked by her rival PPK.
38.
When she found out about the videos, Keiko Fujimori, accused of being partly responsible for the leak of the recordings, condemned her brother's actions.
39.
When PPK resigned on 23 March 2017, the presidency was passed to civil engineer Martin Vizcarra, with Keiko Fujimori welcoming him and wished for his "success" through a tweet the same day.
40.
Keiko Fujimori claimed that the ballot items "are evidence of centrist populism", asked the president to "stop seeing congress members as your enemies", and was empowered to make as the parliamentary majority leader to attempt to defeat the measures through the referendum.
41.
On 10 October 2018, Keiko Fujimori was arrested and placed in provisional detention on charges of money laundering days after the Supreme Court of Peru nullified the pardon of her father, ordering him back to prison.
42.
Keiko Fujimori appealed yet again to be set free but the appeal was rejected by the Superior Court of Justice in January 2019.
43.
Keiko Fujimori was finally released on bail on 5 May 2020.
44.
Keiko Fujimori's party helped lead the controversial removal of Martin Vizcarra and his replacement by Manuel Merino, which resulted with the peaceful 2020 Peruvian protests.
45.
Shortly after their deaths, Keiko Fujimori lamented what had happened and considered the current situation as "unsustainable", calling for Merino to step down or else he "should be censured right here right now", a move she believed a majority of Congress would support.
46.
Keiko Fujimori has said that she wanted to be a president with a "heavy hand" and "authority", proposing increased legal protection on law enforcement.
47.
Keiko Fujimori has called for the construction of more prisons to reduce overcrowding and to offer more instances of probation for small crime offenders.
48.
Keiko Fujimori proposed a large stimulus to voters that would represent three percent of Peru's annual gross domestic product, possibly increasing the low national debt that exists in Peru.
49.
The Guardian reported that analysts and political observers criticized Keiko Fujimori's remarks, noting that it made her appear desperate after losing her third presidential run in a ten-year period.
50.
Keiko Fujimori previously spent a year in jail while awaiting trial for allegedly collecting illegal campaign contributions, and she could conceivably be sent back.
51.
In December 2021, prosecutor Jose Domingo Perez reported that Keiko Fujimori received one million dollars from the Odebrecht Department of Structured Operations that was delivered through offshore intermediary accounts of Gonzalo Monteverde's company Construmaq.
52.
On 27 December 2022, General Secretary of Popular Force Luis Galarreta suggested that Keiko Fujimori is preparing to be a candidate in Peru's next presidential election, despite her denial of interest in running.
53.
Keiko Fujimori has been described as having an authoritarian, centre-right, right-wing populist, and far-right political ideology.