No, it’s not a joke. The citizens of the district of Queropalca, in the province of Lauricocha, in central Peru, have elected their new mayor: Hitler Mussolini Simeón Flores, candidate of the center-left Ahora Nación party. Despite his name, a fusion between the dictator of Nazi Germany and the founder of fascism and head of the dictatorship in Italy, the new mayor got the better of the other candidates by collecting 229 votes, equal to approximately 35% of the total voters.
The elections in Queropalca
Mussolini Simeón Flores narrowly beat the representative of the Renovación Popular list, who collected 204 votes, and the representative of the País para Todos party, who scored 187 preferences. The vote closed with a total of 663 valid votes, photographing a very tight head-to-head: just 25 preferences separated the winner from the second place, while the gap between the new mayor and the third candidate rose to 42 votes.
Regardless of the result, the elections in Queropalca attracted the attention of many media, even outside the borders of the province of Lauricocha, more for the name of the candidate, “victim” of the choice made by his parents, but with decidedly distant political ideas. Hitler Mussolini’s triumph ended up in the spotlight, but it is not the first case of its kind.
The other Hitlers
In 2018, again in Peru, a Hitler candidate even got the better of a Lenin in an election for the position of mayor in the Yungar district: in that case Hitler Guesclin Alba Sánchez defeated Lenin Vladimir Rodríguez Valverde. The new mayor of Queropalca also has another African “namesake”, Adolf Hitler Uunona, who won the local elections in Namibia five consecutive times.