www.CostaRicaTicas.com

The Presidencial elections are over here in CR BUT the eletion is still in doubt. With some polling places yet to be counted,Arias leads Solis by the count of 617,938 to 614,070 as reported in today's A.M. Costa Rica. They are now doing a hand count. (I wonder if there will be a "chad" controversy) To our resident Historians (where are you DD?) I wonder what the difference will be to we mongers depending on who wins. Who is more likely to not enforce the new residency laws? It is assumed that Arias will win,and he is supposed to be "Gringo friendly".

Ya see !??!?!? It's not only us Florida voters that screw up the polls. It happens all over the world !!! I wonder if there'll be an issue with "hanging chads" ?!!!!

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You ALWAYS have an option ....... "NEXT" !!!

But Arias is NOT Colombian nor Nica freindly. He made imigration and illegals a campaign item.

It is also funny Solis took most major areas in central valley (San Jose, Allejula, Heredia), but Arias swept the outskirts

well if it was fair election there unlike when there was more than 57,000 voters had there rights taken from them with awol boy getting appointed. pura gatitas

with it being so, close a race,they could have another run-off in april..........

only if neither candidate has over 40%.

Vegas Bob wrote:





Not all that much an historian on Costa Rica elections but will share what I have learned about the process.

After the polling places close on Sunday the ballots at each polling place are counted manually and the results then transmitted electronically to the Tribunal Supremo de Elecciones (TSE). They add up all the numbers and announce the winner usually sometime early Sunday night.

It is important to understand that this pronouncement is not officially declaring the winner only announcing who has apparently won. The margin of the winner is usually large enough that the winner is apparent and the announcement can be made with reasonable certainty that it is correct. The ballots from the polling places are brought to the TSE in San Jose. The ballots, all of them, are then manually counted and an official pronouncement of the winner is made. This normally takes about 2 weeks. If no candidate received at least 40% of the vote a runoff election is held on the first Sunday of April between the top 2 vote getters.

This year there was not a wide enough margin to declare the unofficial winner on Sunday night so we will have to wait the two weeks to when the manual count is finished.


Hand-Solo wrote:



The reason given for this is that the Partido Liberacion Nacional (PNL) is an old established political party with campaign workers firmly entrenched through out the country. They turned the vote out for Arias in the rural areas. The Partido Accion Cuidadane (PAC) only came about in 2002 when Solis broke away from the PNL and started the PAC. They do not have an established base of workers in the rural areas and therefore did not do well in those sections.



Osgood wrote:


The only time a run off is held is when one candidate does not receive at least 40.0% of the vote. In this case both Arias and Solis are running above 40% so it would seem unlikely that neither will top 40% in the final tally. An interesting footnote. In the event of a dead heat both receiving the exact same amount of votes there would still not be a runoff if they were over the 40% threshold. Under CR law the winner would be the older candidate. In this case Arias is 65 Solis is 51 so Arias would be declared the winner.

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Alex Levine

It looks like Arias has taken a little bit bigger lead over Solis, in today's AM Costa Rica.

http://www.amcostarica.com/

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You ALWAYS have an option ....... "NEXT" !!!

Thanks Irish Drifter....good info. Do any of you have a feel on how Arias will be towards Gringos especially on the issue of Residency.

I feel he will be gringo friendly.. In fact I'm going to predict that his nose will firmly be inserted up the US's a**. I just get that feeling from him. Good thing or bad, I don't know.

V.B.

I don't think this entirely answers your question, but it gives one some idea of Arias' views.

From Inside Costa Rica, Dec 11,2005:



On the other hand, Arias' support of TLC (CAFTA) envisions a Costa Rica more and more integrated into the U.S. economy. IMO this is not a particularly good thing for gringos living here--we may be able to get some U.S. products at a better price but some "local products" could end up continuing to go up in price

Arias and Solis have roughly the same view on immigration.

BTW, its over - Aires was declared the un-official winner on Thursday. Just waiting for ratification.
LVSteve

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Just an old horney, fat gambler.

LV thanks for the update i was wondering who won it. purra gatitas

I can't help thinking that there is a split between urban and rural areas...

though the explanation that the newer party has not had time to expand/entrench it's base in the rural areas makes sense....

ironically, at least in my view, I would have thought that the rural areas would back the party opposed to the free trade (CAFTA) agreement seeing as how they may lose many agricultural jobs with cheaper food imports...

anyway, the voters seems split 50/50 on the virtues of each candidate....

not much of a concensus...the new guy will have his work cut out for him in the legislature and with the voters

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