Elections in Costa Rica | Second round of suspense for the presidential election

(San José) Some 3.5 million voters in Costa Rica began voting on Sunday for the second round of a presidential election with an uncertain outcome between a conservative candidate, Rodrigo Chaves, and the centrist José Maria Figueres.

Polls opened at 6 a.m. (8 a.m. EDT) and will close at 6 p.m. (8 p.m. EDT). “Go to your polling station and vote,” the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) said on Twitter.

MM. Figueres, 67, and Chaves, 60, promise to provide solutions over the next five years to the problems facing Costa Rica: the foreign debt, equivalent to 70% of GDP, the poverty rate of 23 % of the population, unemployment at 14%, and corruption scandals in the public sector.

The two men, with a controversial past, are given almost equal by the latest polls. A few days before the election, around 18% of voters were still undecided, according to opinion polls.

Mr. Chaves, an economist who walked out of the outgoing government’s finance ministry after just 180 days, was punished for sexually harassing two female aides while working for the World Bank between 2008 and 2013.

Facing him, Mr. Figueres has already governed the country from 1994 to 1998. Without going to trial, an investigation had been opened against the former president, suspected of having received 900,000 dollars in 2004 from of the French company Alcatel to win public contracts. Exiled in Europe, Mr. Figueres had refused to respond to summonses from justice, and did not return to the country until 2011, once the case was prescribed.

Either way, neither will have a majority in parliament, and the future president will have to deal with the other parties.

“Happiest” country

Costa Rica (5 million inhabitants) is the “happiest” country in Latin America, according to the latest World Happiness Report. However, tourism, one of the main engines of its economy, has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic and has suffered the largest rise in unemployment in the region, along with Peru.

“The priority right now is to revive the economy. […]to look for ways to give work to the many unemployed”, underlines the auditor Andres Fonseca.

“April 3 is going to be a real revolution in the history of this country. We are going to clean the house, ”launched during his last rally Mr. Chaves, who cultivates a combative image and qualified as an outsider in the first round on February 6.

Mr. Figueres, former president, and son of the former head of state José Figueres, famous for having abolished the army in 1948, has the slogan “experience for progress”.

“This election is different from all those that preceded it. […] our future is at stake,” he dramatized during his end-of-campaign rally.