Hi Thomas,
So the election resulted in a “tie” between two candidates, Luis Guillermo Solis, a former diplomat who hasn’t held any public office, and the former mayor of San Jose and member of the party who previously held the presidency, Johnny Araya. They both got around 30%.
Araya is kind of viewed as the establishment candidate and Solis more left-leaning. The run off is in April.
I’m not a political commentator or expert, so I can’t really speculate about what this all means and what the impact will be on the country. I will say that it shows that Costa Rica does have a strong democratic system – the elections went off without a hitch basically. And I don’t think whoever gets elected will have much impact on expats. The political leaders usually have much more pressing concerns. And it’s the bureaucracy most expats deal with day to day.
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