Laura Chinchilla




SAN JOSE, Costa Rica, Feb. 7, 2010

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Costa Rica Set to Elect First Woman Pres.

Ruling Party Candidate Laura Chinchilla, a Protégé of Current President, Holds Commanding Lead National Vote

Costa Rica's National Liberation Party presidential candidate Laura Chinchilla waves to supporters after voting at a polling station in San Jose, Sunday, Feb. 7, 2010. She held a commanding lead in the polls late Sunday and was set to become the country's first woman president. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)

(AP) Costa Rica's governing party candidate took a commanding lead when vote counting began Sunday and swept toward an election victory that would make her the first woman president in this Central American nation.

Laura Chinchilla had 47 percent of the votes after a quarter of the ballots were counted. The closest contender, Otton Solis of the Citizens Action Party, had 23 percent. He and the other main rival quickly conceded defeat.

Chinchilla, a protege of the current president, Nobel Peace Prize winner Oscar Arias, campaigned on a promise to continue the government's free market economic policies. (Emphasis added)

Chinchilla, who served as vice president under Arias, needed 40 percent of the vote to avoid an April run-off.

Solis barely lost the presidential election to Arias in 2006, but many opposition voters went over to tax-bashing Libertarian candidate Otto Guevarra, who had just under 22 percent of the votes.

Solis congratulated Chinchilla on her apparent victory. "She is going to be the next president of Costa Rica," he told supporters Sunday night. Guevarra offered congratulations to "our president, Laura Chinchilla."

Arias' economic policies brought Costa Rica into the Central American Free Trade Agreement with the United States and initiated trade relations with China after a 63-year association with Taiwan.

Critics of the government argued that Arias' administration catered to big developers to boost the economy at the cost of the nation's fragile ecosystems.

Both Solis and Guevarra portrayed Arias' centrist National Liberation Party as stagnant and ridden with old-school Latin American cronyism.

But most Costa Ricans appeared reluctant to shake up the status quo in a country with relatively high salaries, the longest life expectancy in Latin America, a thriving ecotourism industry and near-universal literacy. (Emphasis added)

Chinchilla, a 50-year-old mother and a social conservative who opposes abortion and gay marriage, appealed both to Costa Ricans seeking a fresh face in politics and those reluctant to risk the unknown. (Emphasis added)

As a female president, she would follow an increasingly common trend in many Latin American countries: Nicaragua, Panama, Chile and Argentina have all elected women as presidents.

Even voters on the margins of society backed Chinchilla.

More . . .

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Fast Facts Costa Rica
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Laura Chincilla is a highly respected female and has been well known as a likely candidate to win.  She was well groomed by the current president for quite some time.  Things were going correct for the country and they went with the incumbent's protege, a social conservative who campaigned on continuance of their current administration's fiscal conservative policies.

-- Edited by Sanders on Monday 8th of February 2010 01:19:03 AM