Leftwing Hitler Mussolini Simeon Flores beats far-right candidate in election in remote district of Andes

A businessman called Hitler Mussolini Simeon Flores has been elected the mayor of a remote district in the Peruvian Andes, according to local election data.

The 45-year-old, who shares two of his names with the notorious European dictators, won the race for mayor of Queropalca, in Peru’s central Huánuco region, and will take office on 1 January.

Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of 1990s leader Alberto, is vying with a congressman to become country’s ninth president in a decade

Peruvians go to the polls on Sunday in an election runoff that pits a perennial rightwing candidate, Keiko Fujimori, against a leftist congressman, Roberto Sánchez. Amid rising crime, chronic political instability, corruption scandals and voter apathy, they are vying to become Peru’s ninth president in a decade.

Fujimori, who is the daughter of the late president Alberto Fujimori, won 17% of the vote in the first round in April. Sánchez, a former trade and tourism minister, took 12 % of the vote, edging out Rafael López Aliaga, an ultra-conservative former Lima mayor. The stage is set for a polarised left-right replay of the country’s last election in 2021.

Lack of ballot papers and defective computers disrupt election that Keiko Fujimori appears to be leading

Peruvians will have to wait at least until the end of Monday to know the result of the presidential election held on Sunday, after the voting process descended into chaos in some polling stations due to a lack of ballot papers or defective computers.

In an unprecedented move, Peru’s electoral agency ONPE announced on Sunday night that it would extend voting for an extra day to allow tens of thousands of Peruvians in the country and abroad, who had been unable to vote, to cast their ballots.

Crime and corruption top voter concerns in highly unpredictable election with 35 candidates for president

Peruvians go to the polls on Sunday hoping to break a cycle of instability that has produced nine presidents in a decade as well as surging violent crime, corruption scandals and overwhelming distrust in institutions and politicians.

About 27 million people who are eligible to vote must choose between a record 35 presidential candidates as well as contenders for the bicameral congress – all from a ballot sheet measuring nearly half a metre, the longest in the country’s history.

José María Balcázar, who argued for marriage at 14 and above, replaces José Jerí who was voted out after a scandal

Peru’s congress has elected José María Balcázar, an octogenarian leftist lawmaker who has defended child marriage, as the country’s interim president ahead of general elections in April.

Balcázar is Peru’s ninth president since 2016. The surprise election, in which Balcázar beat the favourite, María del Carmen Alva, a conservative, came after lawmakers voted to remove José Jerí as president on Tuesday after just four months in office, due to a scandal over secretive meetings with Chinese businessmen.

Pedro Castillo was sentenced by the supreme court for trying to disband Congress and rule by decree in 2022

Peru’s supreme court on Thursday sentenced the former leftwing president Pedro Castillo to 11 years, five months and 15 days in prison for trying to disband Congress and rule by decree in December 2022.

Labelled Peru’s first poor president, the former rural schoolteacher, who had never held elected office before winning the presidency, was impeached by Congress and jailed on the same day after his attempted power grab.