A 45-year-old businessman bearing the names of two of history’s most notorious dictators has won a closely contested mayoral election in Peru’s Andes, securing victory on a centre-left ticket despite his extraordinary name.
Hitler Mussolini Simeón Flores emerged victorious in the remote district of Queropalca, in Peru’s central Huánuco region, after receiving just 229 votes in the October 4 municipal elections.
The candidate from the centre-left Ahora Nación party secured 34.54 percent of valid ballots, narrowly defeating Gaspar Benilde Osorio Zambrano of the right-wing Renovación Popular party, who received 204 votes.
The result gave Flores a razor-thin margin of just 25 votes in a district with a population of slightly more than 730 people, turning an otherwise obscure local election into an international news story.
The election was even tighter than the winning margin suggested. Third-place candidate Itala Yovana Santillán Vara secured 187 votes, leaving only 42 ballots separating the three leading contenders.
According to Peru’s National Office of Electoral Processes (ONPE), 707 ballots were cast, including 663 valid votes, 30 blank ballots and 14 invalid votes. All local tally sheets have been counted, although the formal proclamation of the winner was still pending in the latest reports. Flores is expected to take office on January 1, 2027.
Beyond the extraordinary election result, it was Flores’s name that captured international attention.
His first two names are identical to the surnames of Adolf Hitler, the Nazi dictator responsible for the Holocaust, and Benito Mussolini, the Italian fascist leader who allied himself with Nazi Germany during World War II.
Yet the political irony is striking: a candidate named after two fascist dictators has won office representing a centre-left party, defeating a candidate from the country’s hard-right political camp.
Flores himself has a political history that crosses ideological lines. Electoral records show he previously belonged to Fuerza Popular, the right-wing party associated with Keiko Fujimori, before resigning in 2025 and later contesting the mayoralty under Ahora Nación.
A businessman involved in construction, machinery rental and freight transportation, Flores has promised to improve roads, expand irrigation infrastructure and promote tourism in Queropalca, a mountainous district situated nearly 4,000 metres above sea level.
His campaign materials reportedly avoided using his first name, presenting him instead as Mussolini Simeón Flores.
The publicity has also brought unwanted attention. According to Spanish newspaper El País, party officials said the mayor-elect had been overwhelmed by calls from strangers and had changed his telephone number. They also reported that he had faced attempted extortion following his sudden rise to international prominence.
Remarkably, Flores is not the first politician bearing Hitler’s name to win office in Peru.
In 2018, Hitler Guesclin Alba Sánchez won a mayoral election in the Andean district of Yungar. Another politician, Hitler Saavedra Casternoque, was elected to Peru’s Congress in 2021.
The naming phenomenon extends beyond Peru. In Namibia, local politician Adolf Hitler Uunona attracted international attention after winning an election in 2020, explaining that he had no connection to Nazi ideology.
According to figures from Peru’s civil registry cited by El País, nearly 4,000 people in the country carried the first name Hitler in 2023, illustrating how names associated with controversial historical figures have persisted across generations.
For the residents of Queropalca, however, the immediate question is less about the mayor-elect’s remarkable name and more about whether he can deliver the improvements promised during his campaign.
And for Hitler Mussolini Simeón Flores, 229 votes have been enough to transform a little-known local businessman into one of the world’s most unusually named elected politicians.
