Peruvian Town Elects Mayor with Notorious Name

A left-leaning politician, who happens to share a name with infamous dictators Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, has just been elected as the mayor of a Peruvian town. This political shift comes just a year after he stepped away from a right-wing populist party.

Hitler Mussolini Simeon Flores, aged 45, won 34% of the votes in the recent election held in Queropalca, where he ran as a candidate for Peru’s Ahora Nacion (Now Nation) party.

It’s not entirely certain when Flores became part of Ahora Nacion, though prior to that, he was affiliated with the right-wing Popular Force party. He resigned from that position in 2025, as noted in his candidate declaration.

The Popular Force party is a populist group associated with Peru’s president, Keiko Fujimori, who is the daughter of former dictator Alberto Fujimori.

Flores, who previously managed the Simeon Sac Investment Group, secured his mayoral position with 229 votes—only 25 more than his closest opponent, Gaspar Benilde Osario Zambrano, from the right-wing Popular Renewal party.

Interestingly, just 42 votes separated the top three candidates in this election held in Queropalca, a town with a population of approximately 730 residents.

Flores claims to have a high school diploma, but details about his university education remain unclear.

He’s not the first individual with the name “Hitler” to be elected. For example, Hitler Alba was the mayor of Yungar from 2011 to 2014. In fact, he ran for office again in 2018, where a rival candidate was named Lennin Vladimir Rodriguez Valverde, prompting some to humorously label the election as “Hitler vs. Lenin,” thanks to the similarities in their names.

During his campaign, Hitler Alba promoted himself as a “good” Hitler, suggesting that perhaps his name was just a coincidence. He remarked, “I really don’t have any objection to Hitler. It’s like any other name.”

Voters appeared unfazed by his name, as he secured 47.7% of the votes in that election.

In November of last year, a Namibian politician named Adolf Hitler Uunona won his seat for the fifth consecutive time. However, he’s since opted to drop the “Hitler” from his name and is now simply known as Adolf Uunona.

Uunona expressed, “My name is not Adolf Hitler. I am Adolf Uunona,” acknowledging the difficulties he faced with associations to the infamous dictator.