Indecision dominates electorate before elections in Costa Rica

After two years of Covid-19 pandemic and a deterioration in quality of life, the small central country could see the return to power of traditional parties after eight years of alternation from the left center.

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It is after a dull campaign and with an exploded offer of candidates (25 in total) that Costa Rica is called, Sunday, February 6, to elect the replacement of President Carlos Alvarado, as well as his new Congress, In a context of economic depression after two years of Pandemic of Covid-19.

This central American country of 5 million inhabitants has been ruled for eight years by the Citizen Action Party (CAP, Left Center): In 2014, the CAP had broken up with forty years of bipartism between the Party of Liberation National (NLP) and the Social-Christian Party (CPU), a right center.

These are these two courses that today arrive at the top of the polls for the presidential election. Ex-President José Maria Figueres (1994-1998), the PLN, caps, turn 17% of the voting intentions, according to the latest survey of the University Research and Political Studies Center (CIEP) of the University of Costa Rica ( UCR), published Tuesday 1 er February. Behind him, Lineth Saborio, PUSC, former vice-president between 2002 and 2006, gets 13%. Twenty-three other candidates are competing with the rest of the voting intentions, with a majority of undecis (32%). A second round on April 3, is therefore more than likely.

“Very high social cost”

Long considered “Central American Switzerland” – political stability, health and education systems worthy of the rich countries, share of renewable energies of 99%, GDP per capita up to ten times higher than that From his neighbors -, Costa Rica, at the top of Latin America in the World Happiness Index, now lives darker hours, with red indicators and a degraded quality of life.

The country is rather in front of the COVID-19, with a record vaccination campaign in the region (86% of the population over 12 years old received two doses). But unemployment increased from 10% in 2018 to 14% today, with a peak at 24% in mid-2020, and poverty still affects 23% of the population.

“President Carlos Alvarado’s balance sheet is generally negative, Point Alberto Corti Ramos, Professor at the UCR Political Science School. Faced with the pandemic and in a context of recession, he chose to reduce expenses and contain the tax deficit. He leaves sanitized accounts, but for a very high social cost. “

A neoliberal policy that has been supported, at the Congress, by the two centrist parties, but who has lost the support of those who had allowed his victory in 2014 and in 2018: civil servants, academics, progressive left and middle class in general. “By reducing the budget of public universities, Carlos Alvarado has also been a social actor who is a true counter-power in Costa Rica”, says Tania Rodriguez Echavarria, a teacher-researcher at CIEP.

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/Media reports.