First modification:
The Supreme Electoral Tribunal offered a first bulletin, according to which none of the 25 participating candidates reached 40% of the necessary votes to be declared the winner in the first round. The National Liberation Party of former president José María Figueres reached 30.29% of popular favor in that first count, and in subsequent reports the difference between second and third place was reduced.
The president of the Supreme Electoral Court of Costa Rica, Eugenia Zamora, issued a bulletin with partial results of the presidential elections, which outlines former national president José María Figueres as a candidate for the second round, and maintains a close contest between the conservative candidate of the New Republic Party Fabricio Alvarado and Rodrigo Chaves Robles of Social Democratic Progress.
The first bulletins reflected a participation below 60% of the 3.5 million citizens authorized to participate in a process in which 25 candidates applied.
Figueres, a 67-year-old industrial engineer, presided over Costa Rica from 1994 to 1998. Although the polls did not predict more than 20% of the votes, the first bulletins placed him above 28%, but far from the 40% necessary to proclaim himself winner in the first round.
His name is the only clear one for the April ballot, since the second place was alternating in the initial reports between the evangelical pastor Alvarado and the former Minister of Finance Chaves, with no clear differences emerging.
Lisbeth Saburio of Christian Social Unit and one of the favorites to go to the second round, did not appear in positions that would allow her to aspire to that goal, in elections characterized by indecision.
with Reuters