On Sunday, February 1, Costa Ricans went to the polls to elect a new president and fifty-seven members of congress. The election, which was framed as a referendum on the outgoing administration of Rodrigo Chaves, delivered a resounding victory to his chosen successor, Laura Fernández, who secured over 48 percent of the vote.
The campaign was unusually contentious, in part the product of a massive slate of candidates. Leading the pack was Fernández, a member of the Sovereign People Party (PPSO) and former minister of the presidency. On the other side was a highly fragmented field of twenty presidential hopefuls, including the right-of-center National Liberation Party (PLN), the Citizen Agenda Coalition (CAC), and the democratic left Broad Front Party (FAP). These candidates broadly constituted the opposition and trailed the PPSO in vote intention by a significant margin.
The campaign defied a series of Costa Rican norms. Chaves contravened electoral law by playing an active role in the campaign, evangelical churches allegedly made a massive effort to mobilize support for Fernández, and several opposition candidates faced ongoing legal issues. The crucial backdrop was a recent spike in violence that played into voters’ concerns over insecurity and led to allegations that drug-trafficking money had penetrated various campaigns.
Indeed, worries over security reigned supreme, a factor that usually punishes incumbents but, in this case, served to bolster Fernández, who successfully campaigned on a crime crackdown. Central to this paradox is Chaves himself, whose historic popularity can be traced to a novel approach to Costa Rican politics that masks an otherwise conventional center-right project while presenting a clear break with the country’s democratic tradition. If the elections were a referendum on Chaves, as he himself framed it, voters clearly approve of rodriguismo, a political project with similarities to other right-wing projects in the region but…
Auteur: Andrés León Araya
