Candidate named Hitler Mussolini elected mayor in Peru

Businessman Hitler Mussolini Simeon Flores, who shares two of his names with notorious European dictators, has been elected the mayor of a remote district in the Peruvian Andes, according to local election data.

The 45-year-old won the race for mayor of Queropalca, a municipality in Peru’s central Huanuco region, and will take office on January 1.

The candidate from the left-wing Ahora Nacion party obtained 229 votes out of a total of 663 votes in elections on October 4, according to the National Office of Electoral Processes.

His closest rival, the far-right candidate Gaspar Osorio, received 204 votes.

Flores, who works in the freight transportation business, previously belonged to Popular Force — the party of Peru’s right-wing President Keiko Fujimori — until 2025, according to electoral authorities.

Despite the name being associated with Germany’s World War II-era Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, several candidates with the name have won elections in Peru.

In 2021, Peru elected physician Hitler Saavedra Casternoque to parliament for the centrist party Somos Peru.

In 2018, Hitler Alba Sanchez was voted in as mayor of the Andean district of Yungar, saying during his campaign that he was “the good Hitler.”