First change: 04.05.2022 – 23:03
Costa Rica, the most stable democracy in Central America, experienced an election day in complete calm, in which the great protagonist was the abstention, which reached 42.85%. The winner of the elections was Rodrigo Chaves, who will become the nation’s 49th president after leading a political campaign that focused his message on change and the fight against corruption. In this issue of El Debate, we analyze the profile of the newly elected President of Costa Rica.
The newly elected president of Costa Rica belongs to the burgeoning centre-right Social Democratic Progressive Party and won 52.9% of the vote, allowing him to take over the presidency on May 8 for a four-year term.
The economist was finance minister from 2019 to 2020, before that he held various positions at the World Bank, where he received an internal sanction in 2019 after being reported by several employees for sexual harassment.
These complaints and sanctions were the stain on his career and the most notorious scandal. However, this did not stop him from convincing many Costa Ricans to choose a politician and party that are not part of Costa Rican political tradition.
Chaves is getting a Costa Rica with a badly battered economy trying to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic and trying to become much more attractive to investors and tourism. But for Costa Ricans, there are other priorities. According to a University of Costa Rica poll, 29.1% of Costa Ricans said their top concern was unemployment; for 17.8% it is the country’s economy and for 10.6% corruption is the problem.
President-elect Rodrigo Chaves has other challenges ahead: he must govern with a bench of just 10 MPs out of a total of 57 MPs confirming the legislature, so he must forge alliances; increase the money in the public coffers; dealing with the arrival of migrants from Nicaragua; improves the welfare system; Bet on the development of the regions, especially the coasts of the country and drug trafficking, among other topics that we will analyze together with our guests:
– Eugenia Aguirre Raftacco, political scientist and researcher at the National Policy Observatory, University of Costa Rica
– María Fernanda Bustamante, Political Scientist at the National Policy Observatory in Costa Rica.