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Arias Would Win the Vote But Not
the Election, Poll Shows
A recent poll by Borge y
Asociados, puts Óscar Arias,
presidential candidate for the
Partido Liberación Nacional (PLN)
clear ahead of his rivals with a
difference of some 17 percentage
points.
The poll was taken between May
13 and May 20 with more than 400
adults from all over the country
interviewed. The results have a
margin of error of 5 percentage
points.
One of the questions put to the
people was: who would you vote
for if the elections where held
today? 46.1% said they would
decline to cast their vote,
while 25.7% said they would vote
for the Liberacionista (Arias).
Partido Acción Ciudadana (PAC),
Ottón Solís got a 8.7% response,
while Ricardo Toledo, of the
Partido Unidad Social Cristiana
(PUSC), a 5.6%. Antonio Álvarez
Desanti, of the Unión para el
Cambio (UPC) got 4.1% and Otto
Guevara, of the Movimiento
Libertario, was last at only
3.3%.
Notwithstanding that Arias would
today win the vote from among
those decided to vote, he would
not win the election, not
reaching the required 40% of the
majority vote as spelled out in
the Código Electoral - Elections
Code.
Some experts say this election
campaign will be very
interesting, as most candidates
have no real identity to their
parties.
This election a high number of
young voters are expected to
participate in the election, who
have no identity to a party or
historic grouping of the
traditional politics for the
"red" and "green" parties, the
two parties that have
exclusively ruled politics in
Costa Rica until the 2002
elections.
The scandals and accusations of
corruption could also influence
the vote, as two former
presidents (Calderón and
Rodríguez) are under house
arrest and the current president
on the hot seat over
irregularities, belong to the
same party - the PUSC - and
another former president (Figueres)
has refused to return to Costa
Rica is for the PLN. For now, it
seems that the Figueres thing is
all forgotten, but it could play
a role in the election campaign
against the PLN.
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