Costa Rica 2018

[Georg Ebner]

Is happening today!

The polls at es.wikipedia.org show a surge of the "christ-democratic" PREN's ("Restauracion") candidate ahead of the PLN-one.

[Georg Ebner]

My SmartPhone cannot open the results-site of www.tse.gv.cr

Apparently (at least) 75% are counted:

25% PREN ("RestauractionNacional": new "ChristDemocrats")
21% PAC (left; party of the incumbent president)
19% PLN (SI-member)
16% PUSC (the old "ChristDemocrats")
09% PIN (midright)
05% RSC ("ChristianSocials")

Nobody crossing 40% means a RunOff.

[Hash]

The PRN aren't Christian democrats, it is an evangelical Christian right party which was given tremendous impetus by the IACHR's ruling on same-sex marriage and whose campaign has focused heavily on social conservative homophobia around 'gender ideology'.

The PAC is now a very socially liberal centre-left progressive party. The PLN is a content-free centrist party, one of the two traditional parties of the old two-party system (along with the PUSC) which collapsed beginning in 2002/2006. It hasn't done anything remotely left-wing since at least the 1980s, and has mostly gotten by on personality or bland centre-right managerialism. It didn't learn its lesson from its 2014 rout, so it was dealt its worst ever result, failing to even break 20% and shut out of the runoff.

The PIN is a fake party which, in this election, served as the obligatory partisan vehicle for crazy 'Trumpian' mercurial right-wing populist Juan Diego Castro, who led in the polls until just a few weeks ago. His support collapsed after concerted attacks by the establishment media and his opponents (led by the PLN) and because of his own disjointed insanity. I assume the only one who will be happy from this kerfuffle will be the PIN's owner, one Walter Muñoz, who can finally return to the legislature.

The PRSC is a recent splinter party of the Christian democratic centre-right PUSC, formed by the 'calderonista' faction of the PUSC. The 'calderonistas', led by former president Rafael Ángel Calderón Fournier (1990-1994), were one of the main components of the old heterogeneous and divided Costa Rican 'right', a vaguely European-inspired Christian democratic/'social Christian' current structured around the caudillista figure of Rafael Ángel Calderón Guardia (president 1940-1944).

[Georg Ebner]

Results from the I.round:

Regions:

Cantones:

Positions:

OpinionPolls for the II.round (on April 1st):

So the USsect-ChristDemocrat is still ahead.

[Foggy]

Hash has added to his explanation from earlier in the thread a few weeks ago with a full and comprehensive write-up (including the usual historical background detail). 

[Georg Ebner]

Today, on EasterSunday, will happen the RunOff.
In OpinionPolls Fabricio Alvorado M. (the protestantic preacher) has usually been ahead, but has seen lots of opposition.
Amazingly, the candidate of the old ChristDemocrats (PUSC) endorsed the CAQ-man, while the one of their traditional enemies (PLN, a member of SI) supports Fabricio Alvorado M.

[Hash]

Fabricio Alvarado (not 'Alvorado') was not endorsed by the PLN, but rather by the PLN's (disastrous) presidential candidate Antonio Álvarez Desanti. The distinction is important, because a good number of liberacionista figures have either endorsed Carlos Alvarado or remained neutral (as is the case with Óscar Arias and Laura Chinchilla), although just as many if not more have endorsed Fabricio. Likewise, Rodolfo Piza (the PUSC's candidate) endorsed Carlos Alvarado but this was a personal endorsement and the party itself did not endorse anyone - and, like with the PLN, a fair number of their important figures are supporting Fabricio. I'm not sure why Piza supporting Carlos Alvarado is 'amazing', because there's little in common between a generic centre-right liberal (Piza is from the 'liberal' faction of the party, with a lot of the historically Christian democratic/social Christian faction having bolted to the PRSC) and a crackpot Christian evangelical and Piza is a respectable, level-headed right-winger who understands that nonsensical screaming about "gender ideology" or an insane plot to get out of the Inter-American Convention doesn't make for good government. Besides, Carlos Alvarado has moved away from the more left-wing and protectionist economic stances of his party in the 2000s and his economic platform is very much middle-of-the-road stuff.

I was unaware that Carlos Alvarado was the candidate of François Legault's CAQ, but you learn something new everyday.

[Georg Ebner]

Partial counts of the ElectoralCommission give 61% (or 64%?) to C.A.Q. (that's not the SectPreacher).

The OpinionPolls were very off, but taking the strong agitation against F.A.M. into account the OutCome is not totally surprising either.

[Hash]

It is PAC, not CAQ, unless François Legault won this election while I wasn't watching. One could at least make the minimal effort to get a party abbreviation correct, especially when it has been used several times on this very page.

Carlos Alvarado won 60.66% (at latest count, ie. 97.5% reporting) or 1,293,668 votes -- more than what Solís won in the walkover 2014 runoff and setting a new record. Turnout was 66.5%, up from 65.7% in the first round. Based on these results, here's a map by district (3rd level admin divisions)

[maxque]

Apr 2, 2018 22:51:15 GMT Hash said:

It is PAC, not CAQ, unless François Legault won this election while I wasn't watching. One could at least make the minimal effort to get a party abbreviation correct, especially when it has been used several times on this very page.

Carlos Alvarado won 60.66% (at latest count, ie. 97.5% reporting) or 1,293,668 votes -- more than what Solís won in the walkover 2014 runoff and setting a new record. Turnout was 66.5%, up from 65.7% in the first round. Based on these results, here's a map by district (3rd level admin divisions)

PAC refers to Carlos Alvarado Quasada, I suppose.

[Merseymike]

The polls really were way out here - thankfully

[Hash]

The most prolific pollster, 'Opol Consultores', was revealed just days before the runoff to be a fraud which was actually aligned with Fabricio's campaign and one of the company's directors basically had an online meltdown when it happened. They suspended their last poll because of 'threats'. It doesn't explain why their first round polls were quite accurate, but their runoff polls pre-meltdown all had Fabricio ahead by a significant margin.

twitter.com/i/moments/978872815054139392

The respected and legitimate University of Costa Rica's polls (CIEP-UCR) had Fabricio up within the margin of error on March 23. They too had been very accurate in the first round. It is possible that there was a last minute shift in Carlos' favour in the last week, which was 'unpolled', perhaps because of the scandal about the leaked recordings of a meeting between Fabricio, his campaign and a ton of evangelical pastors in which the candidate and his surrogates asked the pastors for their active support on E-Day (which would be unconstitutional for using religion for political purposes). Carlos also did well, I think, in one of the last debates in which he pounded Fabricio for this scandal.