Costa Rica Holds Municipal Elections

Thirty-two million registered voters took to the polls last Sunday, February 7th to elect 81 new mayors and 6,000 regional officials in the municipal elections held in Costa Rica. It was the first time in the history of Costa Rica that municipal elections were held on a different date than presidential elections, in an attempt to encourage participation and draw focus onto the regional candidates without distraction from the national campaign and agenda. Although abstention rates seemed to have been decreasing relative to previous years, they stilled ranged at a whopping 64.8%. Results showed a clear hegemony at a municipal level for the opposition party, National Liberation Front (PLN), which gained 47 of the 81 mayor positions. Second, with 16 municipalities, was the Social Christian Unity Party (PUSC), followed by the political party currently in power, Citizen Action Party (PAC), with merely 6 mayors elected. Despite PLN’s broad win, however, it lost thirteen of the local offices it previously held. Other smaller parties won the additional twelve municipalities.

One of these smaller political parties is the regional Alliance for San José Party (PASJ), which won the seat for the country’s capital. The newly elected mayor for San José, Johnny Araya, had previously served in that same position for twenty years with PLN, but reallocated to PASJ after being separated from the traditional party after a sweeping loss in the 2014 presidential race. Although many analysts have hinted at the strengthening of the weakened bipartisan system in Costa Rica after the municipal results showed the two traditional parties’ (PLN and PUSC) gaining votes and confidence, some still hold that it is too early to make any presumptions.