Candidate named Hitler Mussolini elected mayor in Peru

A businessman called Hitler Mussolini Simeon Flores has been elected the mayor of a remote district in the Peruvian Andes, according to local election data.

The 45-year-old, who shares two of his names with notorious European dictators, won the race for mayor of Queropalca, in Peru’s central Huanuco region, and will take office on 1 January.

The candidate from the leftwing Ahora Nacion party won 229 out of a total of 663 votes in elections on 4 October, according to the national office of electoral processes.

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

Flores, who works in freight transportation, had belonged to Popular Force, the party of Peru’s rightwing president, Keiko Fujimori, until 2025, according to electoral authorities.

Despite the name being associated with Germany’s Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, several candidates with the name have won elections in Peru.

In 2021, the doctor Hitler Saavedra Casternoque was elected 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”.