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Caribbean & Central America - February 2014 (ISSN 1741-4458)

Solís surprises in Costa Rica polls

Few would had ventured to call Costa Rica’s 2 February general elections given the high percentage of undecideds, unreliable polls and fears regarding low participation in the campaign build-up. However, the performance of Luis Guillermo Solís of the centre-left Partido Acción Ciudadana (PAC) took everyone by surprise. Having trailed for much of the campaign in fourth place in the polls, on some 6% support, Solís narrowly defeated Johnny Araya, of the centrist ruling Partido Liberación Nacional (PLN) whom he now faces in a 6 April run-off. As in El Salvador, where presidential elections held the same day yielded a victory for the incumbent Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN) (see pages 3-4) albeit insufficient to prevent a run-off, both elections revealed growing support for the Left. With political alliances up in the air in Costa Rica, the results of the contest for the 57-member national assembly, which takes up its seats on 1 May 2014, point to one certainty: whoever wins the run-off will inherit a seriously fragmented legislature.

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