Costa Rica's Presidential Runoff Keeps Governing Party in Power.
| Autor | Rodriguez, George |
Costa Rica's voters gave a nontraditional political party a second chance at running their country, and with it raised the expectations to a level far higher than the first time a candidate for the Partido Accion Ciudadana (Citizen Action Party, PAC) was elected, four years ago.
With an ambitious government plan, president-elect Carlos Alvarado, a journalist, former rock singer and guitarist, and former labor minister, faces a major challenge: delivering on campaign promises that voters felt had not been met by the outgoing administration: to relentlessly fight corruption, introduce long-due tax reforms, wipe out extreme poverty, and improve citizen safety, among others.
Like his predecessor, Luis Guillermo Solis, Alvarado started his campaign at the bottom of the country's opinion polls, surprisingly soared to second position--behind rival Fabricio Alvarado, of the Partido Restauracion Nacional (National Restoration Party, PRN)--and eventually won the April 1 runoff (NotiCen, Feb. 15, 2018).
Divisive campaign
The campaign for this year's election was unusually divisive, mostly around personal principles, religious beliefs, and human rights issues, such as same sex marriage and other LGBT rights.
Before and after the runoff, given the notable polarization, both contenders repeatedly underlined the need for Costa Ricans to reconcile and stressed the need to build what they separately described as a "national government"--one of unity.
This year's campaign, particularly for the runoff, seems to have drastically, and perhaps permanently, changed Costa Rican politics.
For one thing, it apparently dismantled the country's traditional bipartisanship. For the first time since the establishment of the Second Republic in 1948, neither of the two traditional parties reached the runoff. The social democratic Partido Liberacion Nacional (National Liberation Party, PLN)--formed by the winners of the armed struggle that led to the Second Republic--and its historic rival, the Partido Unidad Social Cristiana (Social Christian Unity Party, PUSC), were both losers.
For decades, those two organizations had dominated the 57-member single-chamber legislature, the Asamblea Legislativa. After their runoff debacle, however, the leaders of the PLN and PUSC freed their rank-and-file supporters to back either of the nontraditional presidential options.
At first, this seemed like an opportunistic way for the PLN and PUSC to somehow hang on to a modicum of power...
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