Peru Elects a Mayor Named Hitler Mussolini, Who Won by 25 Votes and Was Somehow the Left-Wing Candidate

Somewhere in the Peruvian Andes, a ballot was counted, and history, which had been trying to get some rest, sat bolt upright in bed.

Hitler Mussolini Simeón Flores, a 45-year-old businessman who works in freight transportation, has been elected mayor of Queropalca, a remote district in Peru's Huánuco region. He won 229 of 663 valid votes, or 34.5 percent, in the October 4 local elections. His nearest rival took 204. Twenty-five votes. In a district that size, that is not a mandate. That is a wedding guest list.

The twist arrives in the party registration, where all good twists live. Hitler Mussolini ran for Ahora Nación, a centre-left party. His closest opponent, Gaspar Benilde Osorio Zambrano, ran for the right-wing Renovación Popular. So the voters of Queropalca, offered a choice between the right wing and a man named after its two most famous alumni, picked the man named after them, on the grounds that he was further left. Political science has no chart for this. It has a support group.

Queropalca has an estimated population of just over 730 people. That gives it more historical baggage per resident than any municipality on Earth. Somewhere in Berlin, a walking-tour guide is quietly rewriting his closing joke.

He takes office on January 1. Picture the first council meeting. The clerk clears her throat. Somebody has to say "All rise for Mayor Hitler Mussolini," and nobody in the room wants to be the one whose arm twitches. Every minute-taker in the district is already practicing initials.

Nor is he Peru's first. In 2018, a doctor named Hitler Alba Sánchez was elected mayor of Yungar, another Andean district, describing himself as "the good Hitler." Two elected Hitlers in eight years is not a coincidence. It is a farm team.

Most candidates spend fortunes buying name recognition. Simeón Flores was born with it, just in the direction no consultant would recommend. His candidate application, Politico noted, gave few details and none about his name, which may be the most restrained paperwork ever filed in the Andes. It does say he manages the Simeon Sac investment group. Of everything on that form, "investment group" is the only phrase that has never frightened a European.

Until 2025, he belonged to Popular Force, the party of Keiko Fujimori, Peru's right-wing president. So he has crossed the aisle, which is already more ideological flexibility than either of his namesakes showed in a combined 33 years of dictatorship. Benito never switched parties. Adolf never lost a vote by 25.

AFP, rounding up the week's offbeat news, assured readers that the result "does not mean the march of the far right has now reached even the remotest corners of the Andes." Correct. The right was on the ballot in Queropalca. It lost. To Hitler Mussolini. Running as the moderate.

The district wanted a mayor who moves freight. It got one, plus a name that makes every headline sound like a history exam gone wrong. Twenty-five votes. In Queropalca, that is a landslide. Everywhere else, it is a very awkward wedding.