Costa Ricans head to the polls Sunday to choose between continuing outgoing President Rodrigo Chaves’ conservative populist program and a crowded set of rivals seeking a fresh start from what they cast as an establishment style of politics. The election will also determine the composition of a new National Assembly, with 57 seats at stake, as the country looks to shape policy after years of political and economic turbulence.
The campaign has increasingly turned on public security, with voters weighing the sharp rise in crime in recent years. Some critics have faulted Chaves’ presidency for failing to reduce those rates, while supporters see his confrontational approach as the best route to controlling violence. The different readings of crime and governance have helped define what voters believe is on the ballot when they choose Sunday’s president.
Laura Fernández, the Sovereign People’s Party candidate, is Chaves’ former minister of national planning and economic policy and later his minister of the presidency. She has promised to continue Chaves’ political program and has maintained a “comfortable lead in polls,” while the outcome Sunday is also set up as a potential threshold-versus-runoff decision.
Fernández’s campaign hinges on whether she reaches 40% or more of the vote, a level that would allow her to win outright. If she does not hit that share, Sunday’s results would send her to a runoff against the second-highest vote-getter, scheduled for April 5. With the field including 20 contenders, AP reported that Fernández is the only candidate consistently polling in double figures.
Backers and skeptics of the Chaves-aligned agenda are also watching the legislative vote, as Costa Ricans will elect a new 57-seat National Assembly. Chaves’ party is expected to make gains, though the outcome may fall short of a supermajority that Chaves and Fernández have called for. Such a supermajority would give their party additional power, including the ability to choose Supreme Court magistrates, according to the campaign expectations described in the report.
Fernández’s closest challengers are clustered far behind, including economist Álvaro Ramos of the National Liberation Party and former first lady Claudia Dobles, who is running for the Citizen Agenda Coalition. AP reported that these candidates could still potentially make the second round if Fernández does not wrap up the election Sunday. Otherwise, voters may settle the presidential question in a single vote.
Voting began at 6 a.m. Sunday and is scheduled to continue until 6 p.m., with about 3.7 million Costa Ricans eligible to cast ballots. In Cartago, about 15 miles (25 kilometers) east of San Jose, Ronald Loaiza, an electrical engineer, was among the first to vote amid rain and cold. Loaiza told AP: “I hope that it’s a democratic celebration, that the people come out to vote.” He added: “It’s very important that we exercise the right that this country gives us, that we’re conscious of our democracy.”
Chaves’ rise to power four years ago came through an outsider campaign that beat traditional parties, despite a brief prior stint as economy minister in one of their administrations. His framing of traditional parties as corrupt and self-interested resonated in a context of high unemployment and a soaring budget deficit, and it shaped the tone that voters are weighing in this election.
Constantino Urcuyo, a political-science professor at Costa Rica University, said the social upheaval that helped bring conservative populists to power is not unique, citing similar outcomes in Argentina, Ecuador and the United States. He said Chaves’ party has attacked the country’s institutions and wants to change the constitutional framework, and he noted that Chaves has criticized the judiciary and legislature for challenging his initiatives. “The election is crucial,” Urcuyo said. “It is between people who want a radical change of the system and those who want to reform the system.”