Laura Fernández, 39, will be the next president of Costa Rica after obtaining a resounding victory in the first round in . With 31.14% of the electoral records scrutinized, the Electoral Court has reported that the Partido Pueblo Soberano (PPS), the political organization of President Rodrigo Chaves y Fernández, obtains 53% of the votes. Costa Rica, in addition, defeated this Sunday a ghost that has weighed down its recognized democracy: abstentionism.
The high electoral participation in the presidential elections, which has been around 66%, shows the mobilization of an electorate that has given Chaves’ political project a second chance. The president proposes a “refoundational” model, with a greater concentration of power in the Executive, the reduction of institutional counterweights and reforms to the Constitution.
Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele was the first to congratulate Fernández’s victory. “I just congratulated the elected president of Costa Rica, Laura Fernández, by telephone. I wish her the greatest success in her Government and all the best for the beloved brotherly people of Costa Rica,” said the Salvadoran president.
Sunday’s election took place normally in a country accustomed to settling its differences at the polls. Since the voting centers opened at six in the morning, long lines formed that continued for a good part of the day. The voters came with enthusiasm and without hiding their sympathy for the different options in dispute. Not even the light rain that fell on San José in the afternoon, nor the drop in temperature, discouraged voters: the queues persisted until the polls closed and, late at night, thousands of people took to the streets in caravans with party flags. The sound of horns accompanied the end of an election day that once again put on stage the deep-rooted Costa Rican pride in its democracy.
The victory in the first round confirms the ability of chavismo to capitalize on social unrest accumulated for more than a decade, although without necessarily translating into full control of institutional power, says Alberto Cortés, coordinator of the Central American Chair at the University of Costa Rica.
This comfortable victory opens the door to a Government without checks and balances, with the capacity to align the Legislative Assembly, put pressure on the Judiciary and even promote structural reforms such as continuous presidential re-election, currently prohibited in the country, says the expert. The result in the Congressional elections remains to be seen.
In this context, the new Government would face a double challenge, says the expert. On the one hand, try to advance an agenda of State reform, fiscal austerity and reduction of public employment, measures that will foreseeably reactivate social conflict and citizen mobilization, historically a relevant counterweight in Costa Rica. On the other hand, managing a complex relationship between the outgoing president, Rodrigo Chaves, whose figure has been central in the campaign and whose popularity exceeds that of his successor.
Although during the campaign Fernández was presented as the direct successor of Chaves, there are signs of internal tensions in the ruling bloc. Comparative experience and national antecedents suggest that it is not ruled out that the new president will try to build her own identity and political autonomy once in power.
The background of this official victory is a profound transformation of Costa Rican political culture: the deterioration of social mobility, the widening of territorial gaps, the erosion of traditional parties and the persistent association between politics and corruption. This breeding ground allowed the rise of a confrontational and anti-system leadership. With the ruling party already installed in power, a different stage now begins: that of measuring to what extent it can govern without majorities and how much of the unrest that led to its victory it can really resolve.
Costa Rica closed a presidential election this Sunday that confirms something more than a change of government: the country’s definitive entry into a different political cycle, marked by the erosion of traditional identities, polarization and the mobilization of discontent that had been accumulating under the surface for years.
“We are seeing a profound transformation of identities, the attempt of a brand that forcefully opens up its field trying to displace the traditional ones,” explains Ronald Alfaro, coordinator of the Center for Research and Political Studies (CIEP) of the University of Costa Rica. In his opinion, the key now will be to measure the depth of this realignment based on the electoral result and, above all, the formation of the Legislative Assembly. “From there will come the feasibility or not of substantive changes in the political system,” he warns.
Costa Rica, which for decades was presented as an exceptional democracy in the region, has been showing clear signs of institutional wear and social unrest for at least ten years. “In 2016 we said that there was a strong base of discontent that had not been articulated. Today that possibility exists and is attracting all the ‘anti’,” says Alfaro, who highlights the influence of international trends and “cool” leadership in the electoral channeling of that anger.
For Mario Quirós, political analyst and former advisor to the National Liberation Party (PLN), the country has more at stake than the next four years. “We are in a change of cycle that has not been fully processed and now the exit from the country is being defined for the coming years,” he says. The challenge, he adds, is not only to win, but to govern without deepening the social fracture, in a context of mistrust, polarization and an increasingly harsh public conversation.
Quirós warns of democratic risks that do not necessarily involve a particular figure, but rather the system. “Qualified majorities skip that part of democracy that involves negotiating and reaching agreements,” he maintains. The campaign left eloquent images of that tension: in one of the most commented episodes, President Rodrigo Chaves responded with provocative gestures—sticking out his tongue and blowing kisses—to protesters who shouted “Chaves out!”, a postcard of the confrontation that is currently going through Costa Rican politics.
