Costa Rica elects first woman president

By Alex Leff
Tico Times Staff | aleff@ticotimes.net

Costa Rica elected Laura Chinchilla to be the country’s first woman president Sunday in a festive election day that proved to be a major victory for the incumbent party of President Oscar Arias, of the centrist National Liberation Party (PLN).

Chinchilla, 50, who had stepped down as Arias’ vice president last year to campaign for president, garnered nearly 47 percent of the vote, with 70 percent of the votes counted by 11 p.m. The result confounded most analysts’ expectations and surpassed Chinchilla’s ranking in the polls, which sank to 41.9 percent in a Unimer survey published last week in the daily La Nación.

Ottón Solés, candidate of the center-left Citizen Action Party (PAC), earned just below 25 percent of the vote as of 11 p.m., while the right-wing Libertarian Movement’s (ML) Otto Guevara garnered 21 percent.

After campaigning under the slogan

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