Peru's Keiko Fujimori Announces 4th Presidential Run
By Reuters | 30 Oct, 2025

The daughter of Alberto Fujimori will make another attempt at following in the footsteps of her late father.

Keiko Fujimori, leader of the Fuerza Popular (Popular Force) political party, attends a press conference after a judge dismissed the "Cocteles" (Cocktails) case against Fujimori, in Lima, Peru, October 20, 2025. REUTERS/Angela Ponce

Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of Peru's late former President Alberto Fujimori, said on Thursday she will run for president in the April election, days after Peru's constitutional court dismissed a money-laundering case against her. 

Fujimori ran in Peru's three most recent presidential elections, finishing in each as the runner-up. Her last bid was in 2021, when she was defeated by leftist Pedro Castillo, who was later impeached and arrested in late 2022 after attempting to dissolve Congress.

Fujimori had lost the 2016 election to the center-right economist Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, after losing the 2011 vote to the retired military officer Ollanta Humala.

This will be Fujimori's first campaign since her father died in September 2024, months after being released from prison on a humanitarian pardon. He had served 16 years of a 25-year sentence for human rights abuses during his 1990-2000 administration.

Peru's constitutional court last week dismissed an investigation into Keiko Fujimori over alleged illegal campaign funds in 2011 and 2016, ruling that the money-laundering charges were added to Peru's penal code in November 2016 and cannot be applied retroactively. Fujimori spent nearly 17 months in pretrial detention over the course of the investigation, the court said.

In January, a court had annulled a previous trial, sending the case back to investigation. Prosecutors had sought a 35-year sentence, alleging that Fujimori's party and associates received up to $17 million from sources including Brazilian company Odebrecht (now Novonor) and Peruvian financial holding company Credicorp.

(Reporting by Marco Aquino; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Leslie Adler)