On the eve of Sunday's presidential elections in Peru, polls still favored – by a small margin – Keiko Fujimori over her rival, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski.

This picture represents a step back for millions of Peruvians who have warned that her victory would bring back those dark years experienced by the South American country during the dictatorship of Keiko’s father Alberto Fujimori.

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Peru Elections

Her father committed crimes like the forced sterilization of Indigenous women, led death squads to commit killings and kidnappings of opponents and leftists leaders, and was a man who headed an authoritarian regime hidden behind alleged “economic growth” and a tireless struggle against terrorism.

She served as first lady of Peru during the last six years of her father's dictatorship.

“I am not responsible for the mistakes and crimes of others. I am Keiko Fujimori not Alberto Fujimori, I'm somebody else," the candidate has said several times since 2011, when she first tried to become president and lost against outgoing President Ollanta Humala.

But is not that easy for the 41-year-old Columbia University graduate to disassociate herself from her father's dark legacy. Since 2010 she has chaired the conservative Popular Force Party.

Her party has a majority in Congress and represents the policies and the political ideology of Alberto Fujimori, as well as the personality cult built around him and his neoliberal policies.

“Of course Keiko has her own personality, but what she represents is Fujimorismo, the interests of the oligarchs, she has no leadership … Unlike her rival Kuczynski, Keiko has behind her a huge political machinery, her brother Kenji is the president of Congress and her father is the political mentor of her party,” Luis Varese, a Peruvian political exile and diplomat, told teleSUR.

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But the question remains, why are Peruvians voting for Keiko?

“People who will vote for Fujimorismo know that it is linked to drug trafficking, corruption and murders, but they have (the) capacity to justify everything because the media has told them for years that this kind of government also made advances and ended terrorism,” Varese said.

Varese considers that the former Wall Street banker Pedro Pablo Kuczynski has no charisma or political strength and the only reason that he is now in a runoff is because he has the anti-Fujimori vote. As a matter of fact, the two candidates have a fairly similar right-wing agenda and were political allies in the 2010 presidential election.

“I never thought I would vote for Kuczynski, but I will now and millions of Peruvians will do the same because we know that a blank vote would benefit Fujimori at this point,” said Varese, who is also sure that no matter who wins, they would concede a political pardon to Alberto Fujimori, who has been serving a 25-year-sentence since 2007.

The young leftist forces that emerged in Peru during the first presidential round with their candidate Veronika Mendoza finished third in that contest. 2.8 million, or 18.8 percent, of valid votes cast in her favor will most likely now vote for Kuczynski.

Varese said Fujimorismo demonizes any leftist movement and links the progressive groups with terrorists like the guerrillas Shining Path and Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement .

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However those rivals of Fujimori are mostly young people who have nothing to do with the armed conflict between the government of Peru and the insurgents. In this presidential election they have played an important role conducting mass rallies against the dictator’s daughter, under the slogan "Fujimori never again."

Fujimori represents one of the most conservative sectors of Peru. She is openly opposed to same-sex marriage and abortion in all forms and she has made controversial statements like “rape victims should keep their babies."

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Additionally Keiko’s campaign has been marred with allegations of vote-buying, embezzlement and links with drug-trafficking groups. However her popularity among millions of Peruvians remains untouched. She’s known affectionately by her supporters as “La China,” because of her Asian features typical of her Japanese ancestry.

Just like her father, her descendancy has benefited her campaign in a country where 45 percent of the total population is Indigenous. Indigenous people feel closer to Keiko than to Kuczynski, a white European man. The same happened in 1990 when her father won the presidential election against the Nobel Prize laureate Mario Vargas Llosa.