Arias First, Participation Low in Costa Rica
Former president and Nobel prize winner, Óscar Arias Sánchez, is the most popular presidential candidate in Costa Rica, according to a poll by Borge y Asociados published in the Spanish language daily Diario Extra.

28.3% of respondents would vote for Arias in next February’s election.

In March 2004, Arias officially announced his intention to run for president again as the candidate for the Partido Liberación Naciónal(PLN). The Costa Rican Legislative Assembly opted to bring back presidential re-election in 2003. Arias headed the government from 1986 to 1990.

Ottón Solís of the Partido Acción Cuidadana (PAC) is in second with 10.1%, followed by Otto Guevara of the Moviemineto Libertatio (ML) with 7.5%t, Antonio Álvarez Desanti of the Union Para Cambio (UPC) with 5.7% per cent, José Manuel Echandi of the Partido Unidad Naciónal (PUN) with 3%, and Ricardo Toledo of the governing Partido Unidad Social Cristiana (PUSC) - the current ruling party - with 2.3%.

The surveys shows that more than a quarter of respondents would not head to the polling stations com the first Sunday in February.

On Nov. 17, Arias said racism should be eradicated in Costa Rica, declaring, "Mistakenly, we keep teaching our children that we are a white-skinned society of European origin. Worse yet, we teach them that this makes us different from the rest of Central America. This amounts to ignorance, mental laziness and racism."

Otton Solís made a strong showing in February 2002, the first election ever when a third party forced a second vote that saw the PUSC’s Abel Pacheco elected in the run-off vote in April 2002 with 58% of the vote. 

Toledo of the PUSC, who was MInistro de la Presidencia until he resigned earlier this year is in last place in the polls, indicated of what the people think about Pacheco's administration. In the last 20 years, the PUSC has dominated the presidential chair with  Calderón (1990-1994), Rodriguez (1998-2202) and Pacheco (2002-2006), while the PLN has had Arias and Figueres (1994-1998) in power.

Before Pacheco's election, the PUSC and PLN alternated governing the country.

Polling Data

What candidate would you vote for if the presidential election were held today?

Source: Borge y Asociados / Extra
Methodology: Telephone interviews with 1,008 Costa Rican adults, conducted from Oct. 27 to Nov. 10, 2005. Margin of error is 3.2 per cent.