Man named Hitler Mussolini wins mayoral race in Peruvian town
45-year-old, who sometimes drops his first name, wins race in remote district by 25 votes
A man named Hitler Mussolini Simeón Flores won a mayoral election in a small Peruvian town earlier this month, drawing attention around the world.
Flores, a 45-year-old businessman who represented the center-left Ahora Nación party, won 229 votes, or 34.5 percent of the valid ballots, defeating his closest rival, Gaspar Benilde Osorio Zambrano of the Renovación Popular party by 25 votes, the BBC reported Friday.
The candidate named after the two fascist dictators campaigned on improving roads and transportation, education, health and the local economy in Queropalca, a remote district in the Peruvian Andes.
Social media accounts showed that Flores sometimes campaigned using just the name Mussolini.
On Facebook, Flores, who goes by the nickname “Musho,” thanked his supporters in Spanish, describing his campaign as marked by “months of hard work, difficult moments and situations that tested our strength and unity.”
He joins a list of other men named after the German Nazi leader who have won elected office, including in Peru.
Hitler Guesclin Alba Sánchez won the mayoral election of Yúngar in Peru in 2018, after reportedly campaigning as “the good Hitler.”
In 2020, a man named Adolf Hitler Uunona won in local elections in Namibia.
He told the BBC that at the time of his naming, his father “probably didn’t understand what Adolf Hitler stood for.”
“As a child I saw it as a totally normal name,” he said.