By: Staff Writer
January 18, 2022
The model of Central American democracy, Costa Rica, goes to the polls on February 6. What to expect is a vibrantly contested election with peaceful proceedings.
While Costa Ricans head to the polls on February 6, 2022 to elect the next president of this relative haven of stability in Central America. If no candidate receives 40 percent of the vote in the first round, a second round will be held on April 3 between the two top finishers.
The small Central American country is set to elect a president, two vice presidents, and all 57 seats in the legislature, as it does every four years. Incumbent President Carlos Alvarado Quesada of the centre-left Citizens’ Action Party (CAP) is constitutionally barred from seeking a subsequent term in office, though he is permitted to run again later in his career.
There are 25 candidates in this year’s Costa Rican election. Among the 63 percent of respondents planning to vote, 48 percent have not yet picked a candidate to replace President Carlos Alvarado, the Oct. 21-Nov. 2 survey of 940 voters by the University of Costa Rica’s Centre for Research and Political Studies (CIEP) showed.
Costa Rica bars presidents from seeking consecutive re-election.
The candidate of the centrist National Liberation Party (PLN), Jose Maria Figueres, who was president from 1994 to 1998, led the polling with 19 percent support, well below the 40 percent threshold needed to win outright in a first round of voting.
Figueres is followed by Lineth Saborio, candidate of the conservative Christian Social Unity Party (PUSC), with 8 percent; evangelical preacher Fabricio Alvarado, runner-up in the 2018 presidential election, with 5 percent; and congressman Jose Maria Villalta of the leftist Broad Front, with 4 percent.
Welmer Ramos, the candidate of Alvarado’s center-left Citizens’ Action Party, had just 2 percent of support among the 26 hopefuls competing, the highest number in Costa Rican history.
Costa Rica’s 2018 election saw the surprise rise of Christian singer and National Restoration Party congressman Fabricio Alvarado, who won the first round of the election with a socially conservative platform based around issues like an opposition to same-sex marriage. In the end, he lost the runoff to Citizens’ Action Party’s Carlos Alvarado in an election that saw a reshaping of Costa Rica’s traditional party system.
Now, Fabricio Alvarado is back amid a field of 25 candidates seeking to replace the president, given that consecutive reelection is not allowed. But his victory is far from assured; former President José María Figueres (1994-1998) of the National Liberation Party is currently polling in first at 19 percent. No other candidate has risen above 10 percent, but other strong contenders include former Vice President Lineth Saborío and progressive environmentalist José María Villalta.
With 75 percent of Costa Ricans having received at least one shot of a vaccine, the pandemic is not a chief political issue. Instead, voters are focused on 19 percent unemployment, rising cost of living, and corruption – as well as migration from Haiti. Voters must navigate a fractured field of 27 candidates.
The Covid-19 pandemic continues, remains highly contagious in the country due to the omicron variant, with record cases all week, surpassing the 4,000 daily barrier and expected to continue and even worsen.
The Development Observatory of the University of Costa Rica (UCR) projects a peak of infections per day, which according to estimates (may change) would be around 18 thousand cases. The country has never reached those levels and it is doubted that the health system has the capacity to diagnose such a quantity and maintain the trace, according to experts.
Under Alvarado Quesada, Costa Rica became the first country in Central America to legalize same-sex marriage. The president also has groundbreaking climate ambitions. But the pandemic has taken a toll on Costa Rica’s economy, in particular its tourism sector, which has caused approval of Alvarado Quesada and the CAP to dip. Most Costa Ricans list the economic pitfalls of the pandemic—unemployment and rising costs of living—as their main election issues. Many are also concerned about an uptick in migration from Haiti.
The election will prove pivotal for Costa Rica, which has seen intermittent unrest over the past few years in reaction to tax reform, labour policies, and the country’s macroeconomic program.