When Naming Rights Meet Local Ballots: The Peruvian Mayor Named Hitler Mussolini

Voters in the quiet Andean district of Queropalca have chosen their next leader, and international observers might be forgiven for doing a double take at the ballot paper. Hitler Mussolini Simeón Flores has secured the mayoralty, carrying the banner of the centre-left party Ahora Nación. In a region where hyper-local political realities dwarf distant European history, the 45-year-old businessman proved that an unholy pairing of 20th-century historical luggage is no barrier to local electoral success.

The victory was achieved by the slimmest of margins. Simeón Flores captured 229 votes, representing 34.5 percent of the 663 valid ballots cast in the small mountain district situated in the Huánuco department north of Lima. His nearest competitor, Gaspar Benilde Osorio Zambrano of the right-wing Popular Renewal Peru party, fell just short with 204 votes, or 30.8 percent. For a community whose official population hovers just above 730 residents, every ballot carries real weight. Beyond his newly acquired municipal duties, the mayor-elect maintains a footing in the private sector, managing the Simeon Sac investment group in the nearby district of Pillco Marca.

This local contest unfolded as part of a nationwide wave of municipal and regional elections following the presidential victory of right-wing candidate Keiko Sofía Fujimori. Yet while high-level national battles turn on ideological posturing, Peru’s municipal politics frequently operate in a universe of their own, where branding takes on eccentric forms. Simeón Flores is far from the first Peruvian politician to navigate public life with a name lifted from dictatorial history.

In fact, Peruvian electoral registers show a curious pattern of historical naming. Hitler Alba, representing the centre-right We Are Peru party, served as mayor of the Andean town of Yungar between 2011 and 2014 before winning another term in 2018 with nearly 48 percent of the vote. During that campaign, Alba famously branded himself as the good Hitler while fending off an election challenge from a rival named Lennin Vladimir Rodriguez Valverde. Alba acknowledged that his father had selected the name without understanding the full dark history behind the German dictator. The name appeared again in the national legislature, where surgeon Hitler Saavedra served as a congressman for the same party from 2021 until his passing in 2024.

The practice of conferring historical or provocative names on children remains surprisingly widespread across Peru, where parental whimsy often operates entirely detached from global historical associations. In high-altitude Andean valleys where political survival depends on local business ties and municipal promises rather than ideological purity, candidates bear whatever labels their parents bestowed upon them. Ultimately, voters in Queropalca appear far more interested in local governance and economic management than in the dark historical echoes attached to their new mayor’s birth certificate.

Written by Andreas Hofer andreas.hofer@alpineweekly.com