ELECTION 2006
Election Gridlocked, New President Will Be Named in 15 Days
The Tibunal Supremo de Elecciones (TSE) last night suspended the counting at i591.769 to 588.516 - a difference of 3.250 votes - when TSE president, Oscar Fonseca, announced last night that the official results will be available within 15 days as there will be a manual count of all votes cast on Sunday.

For now, Costa Rica does not yet have a winner and a future president until the TSE makes the count known and officially makes the pronouncement of who is the winner.

Under Costa Rica's Political Constitution the winner must obtain at least 40% of the popular vote. In this case, if the neither of the two leaders drop below the 40%, the one with the highest number of votes will be  declared the winner.

In the event that the manual count - not called a recount, because the TSE suspended the count before a full count of all votes - neither of the two candidates earns the required 40%, then there will be a second round election the first Sunday in April.

And in the event that the count results end up in a tie, with each candidate earning above the 40%, Costa Rica's Political Constitution says that the elder of the two candidates will then be declared a winner.  Arias is the older of the two men.

This is the first time in Costa Rica's history that an election has been gridlocked. The TSE has prouded itself of always delivering election results quickly, first announcing that resutls would be available by 8:45pm at the latest on Sunday night.

However, when it was close to midnight and less than 50% of the voting stations had reported, it was clear that the process would take longer. By later yesterday afternoon the TSE was slow in announcing voting results, as each hour it would update the count, announcing small changes in the results and then suspending the process all together, announcing that it would take time to count all the votes manually.

Costa Ricans are not used to this. The general mood is one of shock. All the propaganda and the rhetorics has stopped and not winner.

More than 100 people are involved in the process of collecting all the voting ballots from all over the country to be brought to the TSE as quickly as possible so that a manual inspection and count of each vote can be made.

The TSE says this is a normal process of every election, it's that the results of this election is so close that a winner cannot be declared, said TSE's president Fonseca.

In the meantime, while the country waits patiently, both Arias and Solís are making plans to either govern or be the opposition.