Costa Rica set to elect first female president

Feb 8, 2010, 10:05 GMT

   San Jose - Sporting an unassailable election lead, Laura Chinchilla was on course to become Costa Rica's first female president.

   Four hours after the polls closed Sunday and with 40 per cent of the ballots counted, Chinchilla had taken 46.9 per cent of the votes, according to the head of the electoral commission, Luis Antonio Sobrado.

   'I am the best alternative,' Chinchilla, 50, said of an election where there had sometimes been little to differentiate the candidates' policies. All pledged to tackle the country's drug-trafficking problem and its associated violence.

   If she obtains 40 per cent or more of the vote across the country, it would mean a first-round victory and another term for the National Liberation Party.

   Her rivals - economist Otton Solis, 55, of the Citizen Action Party and lawyer Otto Guevara, 49, of the centre-right Libertarian Movement Party - took 24.2 per cent and 21.5 per cent of the votes, respectively.

   Experts observed that in a runoff, Chinchilla would have likely struggled against a united opposition.

   Outgoing President Oscar Arias commented on his pride in Costa Rican democracy, where no soldiers were deployed to guard the ballot boxes. 'We have never seen pictures like that in Costa Rica, and we never will,' he said.

   Violence was a dominant theme of the election campaign with almost 1,000 murders over the past year. The violence is widely associated with the drugs trade with Costa Rica on a strategic transit route between South and North America.

   Ninety tons of cocaine were seized in the country over the past three years.

   All candidates in the election spoke of stepping up the fight against drug trafficking by reinforcing the police in a country that has had no army since it was abolished in 1949.

   In the weeks running up to the election, Solis tried to stoke up discontent over the Central America Free Trade Agreement with the United States and Canada, promising to renegotiate Costa Rica's terms if elected.

   The issue had polarized the electorate in the previous campaign four years ago but this year failed to rouse passions. A referendum held by Arias after he was elected showed a small majority to be in favour of the trade agreement.

   A political scientist by training, Chinchilla started her political career in the 1990s. She held positions as vice minister and then minister of public security. Since 2002, she has been a member of the Legislative Assembly and was made vice president by Arias in 2006.

   In her campaign, she spoke out for improving conditions for the poor and the weak with a focus on strengthening the national economy, weakened by the global financial crisis.

   She is married to Spanish businessman Jose Maria Rico with whom she has one son.