Ex-Vice President May Avoid Run-Off Vote in Costa Rica

MEXICO CITY — Early results in the Costa Rica presidential elections held Sunday gave a decisive lead to Laura Chinchilla, a former vice president who was on the verge of becoming the country’s first woman president.


Esteban Felix/Associated Press
Laura Chinchilla, who led in polls before Costa Rica’s presidential election, with supporters Sunday after voting in San José.

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Times Topics: Costa RicaMs. Chinchilla, 50, had about 48 percent in early counting, and both the second- and third-place candidates, the leftist Ottón Solís and the libertarian Otto Guevara, conceded before 10 p.m.

Ms. Chinchilla thanked her supporters via Twitter before heading to a hotel in the capital, San Jose, to make her victory speech.

The campaign was dominated by voters’ concerns over rising crime, and Ms. Chinchilla, a former minister of justice, has promised to raise spending on security by 50 percent.

Ms. Chinchilla, of the National Liberation Party, promised continuity with the free-trade policies of out-going President Óscar Arias, a Nobel a Nobel Peace Prize winner who helped guide Central America out of its cold war conflicts.

Although she follows the center-left welfare policies of her party, she is social conservative who opposes abortion and gay marriage. Ms. Chinchilla holds a master’s degree in public policy from Georgetown University and is the mother of a teenage boy.

As the early results were announced, Ms. Chinchilla’s supporters began to fill the streets of the capital, waving the party’s green and white flag.

Although Costa Rica is still a relative oasis of peace and economic development in Central America, the rising crime rate there became the dominant issue in the campaign. Ms. Chinchilla blamed organized crime and the spillover from drug trafficking through Central America.

The global economic crisis pushed Costa Rica into recession last year, but the economy is expected to grow this year.

Both of Ms. Chinchilla’s leading opponents had argued that if she won, Mr. Arias, who is 69, would continue to wield power from behind the scenes. A campaign commercial for Mr. Solís showed Mr. Arias pulling the strings on a marionette representing Ms. Chinchilla.

The campaign has had its share of unusual moments. In response to questions over campaign financing, Mr. Guevara took a polygraph test on television. Mr. Solís also submitted to a test, but Ms. Chinchilla declined.

From NYTimes.com