Peru Elects Mayor with Name of Two Infamous Dictators
In a fringe, yet historically striking result, 45‑year‑old Hitler Mussolini Simeon Flores picked up the mayoralty of Queropalca, a sparsely populated district in the central Andes.
The center‑left Ahora Nación party fielded Flores in a contest that drew merely around 700 votes. He edged out his nearest rival from the right‑wing Renovación Popular Perú by 25 ballots, taking just under a third of the vote.
What has turned a small, 1,000‑person locality into an international footnote are Flores’s first and middle names, echoing the totalitarian rulers Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. The contrast between his political platform and the historical weight of his name has sparked global headlines.
The candidate, a native of Huánuco province about 360 kilometres (224 miles) from Lima, previously campaigned on promises of community development and transparency.
Critics note that Peruvian politics has seen other oddly named leaders before, including a 2018 mayor of Yúngar who carried the name Hitler Guesclin Alba Sánchez, and a Namibian local politician with the surname Hitler in 2020.
While the election result may seem eyebrow‑raising, officials underscore that the vote was a standard democratic exercise despite the novelty surrounding the victor’s moniker.
