A man named Hitler Mussolini has been elected mayor in Peru after defeating a far-right rival in one of the country’s most unusual local election results.
Hitler Mussolini Simeon Flores, 45, won the race for mayor of Queropalca, a remote district in the central Huanuco region, on October 4, 2026, and is due to take office on January 1.
According to Peru’s national electoral authority, Flores secured 229 votes out of 663 cast in the October 4 election. His closest rival, Gaspar Osorio, received 204 votes. But the result became much more widely noticed because of Flores’ name.
He shares two names with Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, the dictators who led Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy during the Second World War. The political twist is just as unusual.
Flores ran for the leftwing Ahora Nacion party, while the candidate he defeated represented the far right.
The businessman works in freight transportation and has not always been aligned with the left.
Electoral records show that until 2025 he belonged to Popular Force, the party associated with Peru’s rightwing president Keiko Fujimori.
His victory may sound extraordinary, but Peru has seen politicians named Hitler before.
In 2021, a doctor named Hitler Saavedra Casternoque was elected to Congress. Three years earlier, Hitler Alba Sanchez won a mayoral race in the Andean district of Yungar and even described himself during the campaign as “the good Hitler.”
Flores’ election therefore adds another chapter to a political tradition that has repeatedly left international audiences doing a double take.
