2010 Costa Rican general election

2010 Costa Rican general election

7 February 2010
Turnout	69.1%
Presidential election
Candidate Laura Chinchilla Ottón Solís Fallas Otto Guevara Guth Party PLN PAC PML Home state San José San José San José Percentage 46.91% 25.06% 20.92%
President before election Oscar Arias PLN Elected President Laura Chinchilla PLN
Legislative election
Party Leader % Seats +/– PLN Laura Chinchilla Miranda 37.3% 24 −1 PAC Ottón Solís Fallas 17.6% 11 −6 PML Otto Guevara Guth 14.5% 9 +3 PUSC Luis Fishman Zonzinski 8.2% 6 +1 PASE Óscar Andrés López Arias 9% 4 +3 PRC Mayra González León 3.9% 1 +1 FA Eugenio Trejos Benavides 3.6% 1 0 This lists parties that won seats. See the complete results below. Map on the left shows the seats won by each party by province. The map on the right shows which party won the plurality in each province in the Presidential election.

General elections were held in Costa Rica on 7 February 2010. The ruling party before the election, the center-left National Liberation Party, put forward former Vice-President Laura Chinchilla as its presidential candidate, while the libertarian, Movimiento Libertario nominated former legislator Otto Guevara. Opinion polls before voting started consistently put Chinchilla as the front-runner, a trend confirmed in the election-night count, which showed her garnering 46.76% of the vote.

The election was supervised by observers from several countries, as well as from the Organization of American States. The incumbent President, Óscar Arias, was ineligible to run for a second consecutive term. This was the last time as of 2019, that the National Liberation Party has gotten more than 30% of the vote, the last time to this date that they have won the Presidency, and the last time it has won any province in what is known as the Central Valley (the four provinces in the interior of the country: San José, Alajuela, Heredia and Cartago).

Presidential candidates

Candidates included:

• Laura Chinchilla Miranda (ruling National Liberation Party, vice-president 2006-08)
• Ottón Solís (oppositional Citizens' Action Party, candidate in 2006)
• Otto Guevara (Movimiento Libertario, candidate in 2006)
• Luis Fishman (conservative Social Christian Unity Party, vice-president under Abel Pacheco)

Two weeks before the election, Patriotic Alliance and National Integration Party's candidates, Rolando Araya and Walter Muñoz, stopped their campaigns and endorsed Citizens' Action Party's candidate Otton Solís, in an effort to build a progressive alliance against Laura Chinchilla.

Parliamentary elections

The swifting from a two-party system to a multi-party system was much more evident in this election

For the then three major parties; PLN, PAC and ML the voting for the presidential ballot was superior to the support in the legislative, as for example PLN presidential candidate Laura Chinchilla received 46% of the votes and PLN’s legislative ballot only 37%. Similarly PAC’s candidate Ottón Solís with 25% presidential against 17% legislative and Otto Guevara with 20% oppose to 14% legislative. Contrary to PUSC whose candidate Luis Fishman received 3% electoral support while his party received 8%.

This was at the time PAC’s worst electoral result in its history having the smallest faction in the Parliament and ML’s best result with to this date its biggest. PLN only lost one seat. Left-wing Broad Front maintained its only seat in the person of future presidential nominee José María Villalta Florez-Estrada and two Christian parties for the first time had deputies at the same time; Costa Rican Renewal Party and its provincial offshoot National Restoration.

Opinion polling

• CID-Gallup 24 January 2010: Chinchilla 43%; Guevara 30%; Solís 15%; Fishman 8%
• Borge & Asociados for Diario Extra opinion poll January 2010: Chinchilla 38.7%; Guevara 18.3%; Solís 9.6%; Fishman 3.7%
• Demoscopía for Al Día January 2010: Chinchilla 45.1%; Guevara 30.1%; Solís 9.5%; Fishman 3.8%
• December 2009: Chinchilla 36.7%; Guevara 16.2%; Solís 8.5%; Fishman 2.2%
• December 2009: Chinchilla 46.6%; Guevara 19.5%; Solís 8.3%; Fishman 4.1%
• October 2009: Chinchilla 53.0%; Guevara 15.7%; Solís 12.3%; Fishman 1.5%

Results

President

At 9:08 p.m. local time on election day, 7 February second-placed candidate Otton Solis conceded defeat to Laura Chinchilla, who will become Costa Rica's first female president. With approximately 40% of the vote counted, Chinchilla was consistently surpassing the 40% threshold for victory in the first round, leading Solis by 47% to 24%, with third-placed candidate Otto Guevara trailing at 21.5%.

Candidate		Party	Votes	%
	Laura Chinchilla	National Liberation Party	863,803	46.78
	Ottón Solís	Citizens' Action Party	464,454	25.15
	Otto Guevara	Libertarian Movement	384,540	20.83
	Luis Fishman	Social Christian Unity Party	71,330	3.86
	Óscar López	Accessibility without Exclusion	35,215	1.91
	Mayra González	Costa Rican Renewal Party	13,376	0.72
	Eugenio Trejos	Broad Front	6,822	0.37
	Rolando Araya	Patriotic Alliance Party	3,795	0.21
	Walter Muñoz	National Integration Party	3,198	0.17
Invalid/blank votes			39,514	–
Total			1,950,847	100
Registered voters/turnout			2,822,491	69.12
Source: TSE

Popular Vote National Liberation   46.78% Citizens' Action   25.15% Libertarian Movement   20.83% Social Christian Unity   3.86% Acc. w/o Exclusion   1.91% Costa Rican Renewal   0.72% Broad Front   0.37%

By province

Province %	PLN %	PAC %	ML %	PUSC %	PASE %	PRC %	Other %
San José	46.6	28.9	17.6	3.6	2.1	0.6	0.6
Alajuela	45.3	26.5	21.9	3.2	1.8	0.8	0.5
Cartago	49.7	23.5	19.4	4.2	2.1	0.4	0.7
Heredia	46.6	27.6	19.5	3.2	1.8	0.6	0.7
Puntarenas	48.9	17.3	26.7	4.4	1.3	0.8	0.6
Limón	41.6	17.5	31.4	5.0	1.7	1.9	0.9
Guanacaste	51.4	15.9	23.3	6.1	1.6	1.2	0.6
Total	46.8	25.1	20.9	3.9	1.9	0.7	0.8

Legislative Assembly

Legislative Assembly-Popular vote
National Liberation			37.16%
Citizens' Action			17.68%
Libertarian Movement			14.48%
Acc. w/o Exclusion			9.17%
Social Christian Unity			8.05%
Costa Rican Renewal			3.97%
Broad Front			3.66%
National Restoration			1.62%
Patriotic Alliance			1.47%
Other			1.22%

Legislative Assembly-Seats
National Liberation			42.10%
Citizens' Action			19.29%
Libertarian Movement			15.79%
Social Christian Unity			10.52%
Acc. w/o Exclusion			7.01%
Costa Rican Renewal			1.75%
Broad Front			1.75%
National Restoration			1.75%

Party		Votes	%	Seats	+/–
	National Liberation Party	708,043	37.3	24	–1
	Citizens' Action Party	334,636	17.6	11	–6
	Libertarian Movement	275,518	14.5	9	+3
	Accessibility without Exclusion	171,858	9.0	4	+3
	Social Christian Unity Party	155,047	8.2	6	+1
	Costa Rican Renewal Party	73,150	3.9	1	+1
	Broad Front	68,987	3.6	1	0
	National Restoration Party	29,530	1.6	1	0
	Patriotic Alliance Party	28,349	1.5	0	New
bgcolor=Template:National Integration Party (Costa Rica)/meta/color|	National Integration Party	14,643	0.8	0	0
	Cartago Agrarian Union Party	11,862	0.6	0	0
	Heredia Restoration Party	7,953	0.4	0	New
	Alajuela Restoration Party	7,298	0.4	0	New
	Cartaginese Transparency Party	4,590	0.2	0	New
	Green Ecologist Party	2,901	0.2	0	New
	Elderly Alliance Party	2,724	0.1	0	New
	Alajuelan Familiar Force Party	1,609	0.1	0	New
	Workers' and Farmers' Movement	1,127	0.1	0	New
Invalid/blank votes		32,883	–	–	–
Total		1,950,708	100	57	0
Registered voters/turnout		2,822,491	69.1	–	–
Source: Election Resources

By province

Province	PLN		PAC		ML		PUSC		PASE		PRC		FA		PREN		PAP		Other
	%	S	%	S	%	S	%	S	%	S	%	S	%	S	%	S	%	S	%	S
San José	35.5	7	19.0	4	12.3	2	7.4	2	11.1	2	3.0	1	4.7	1	4.3	1	1.1	0	1.6	0
Alajuela	38.2	5	19.9	2	16.5	2	6.5	1	8.5	1	6.5	0	1.3	0	2.0	0	1.9	0	0.8	0
Cartago	38.9	3	17.0	1	13.1	1	7.6	1	7.9	1	2.8	0	2.8	0	-	0	1.2	0	8.5	0
Heredia	37.0	2	19.1	2	13.9	1	7.3	0	8.7	0	2.9	0	4.8	0	4.0	0	1.9	0	0.5	0
Puntarenas	39.7	2	14.3	1	18.6	1	13.8	1	5.1	0	4.3	0	2.2	0	-	0	1.1	0	1.0	0
Limón	33.3	2	12.0	1	20.1	1	10.2	1	5.6	0	8.6	0	7.3	1	-	0	1.2	0	1.8	0
Guanacaste	43.1	3	11.6	0	13.5	1	11.0	0	10.0	0	5.1	0	2.2	0	-	0	3.1	0	0.3	0
Total	37.3	24	17.6	11	14.5	9	8.2	6	9.0	4	3.9	1	3.6	1	2.4	1	1.5	0	2.0	0

Municipal Councils

See also: 2010 Costa Rican municipal elections

The elections of municipal councilors of Costa Rica in 2010 were an electoral process held in parallel with the presidential and legislative elections. In them the 495 tenure aldermen and the 495 alternates that conform the 81 Municipal Councils were chosen.

The Central Canton of San José, the most populous, named 13 aldermen. Desamparados and Alajuela named 11. Others less populated (Puntarenas, Limón, Pococí, Heredia, Cartago, La Unión, San Carlos, Goicoechea, Pérez Zeledón, etc.) named 9. Others even smaller (Tibás, Grecia, Vázquez de Coronado, Montes de Oca, Siquirres, Escazú, Turrialba, etc.) appointed 7 council members. Finally, the smallest (Turrubares, San Mateo, Santa Ana, Mora, Montes de Oro, Talamanca, etc.) named 5.

Party		Aldermen	Range
	National Liberation Party	196	National
	Citizens' Action Party	98	National
	Libertarian Movement	75	National
	Social Christian Unity Party	54	National
	Accessibility without Exclusion	23	National
	Costa Rican Renewal Party	10	National
	21st Century Curridabat	4	Curridabat Canton
	Patriotic Alliance	3	National
	Escazu's Progressive Yoke	2	Escazú Canton
	Party of the Sun	2	Santa Ana Canton
	Palmaran Union	2	Palmares Canton
	Unique Abangaran	2	Abangares Canton
	Broad Front	1	National
	National Integration Party	1	National
	National Restoration Party	1	National
	Cartago Agrarian Union Party	1	Cartago Province
	Tarrazú First	1	Tarrazu Canton
	The Bridge and the Roads of Mora	1	Mora Canton
	Goicoechea in Action	1	Goicoechea Canton
	Coronado's Authentic Farmer Party	1	Vazquez de Coronado Canton
	Fuenteovejuna Civic Party of Tibás	1	Tibas Canton
	Let's Renew Alajuela	1	Alajuela Canton
	Atenian Union	1	Atenas Canton
	Independent Belemite Party	1	Belen Canton
	Santo Domingo Advance Party	1	Santo Domingo Canton
	Live Buenos Aires	1	Buenos Aires Canton
	Active Social Organization	1	Osa Canton
	Oromontan Autonomous Party	1	Montes de Oro Canton
	Quepan Action	1	Quepos Canton
	Ecological Garabito	1	Garabito Canton
	Independent Siquirres Cantonal Action Party	1	Siquirres Canton
	Ramonese League Coalicion (Broad Front+Patriotic Alliance)	1	San Ramón Canton
	Alfaro Ruiz' Popular Coalition (Broad Front+Patriotic Alliance)	1	Alfaro Ruiz Canton
	San Carlan Alliance (Broad Front+Patriotic Alliance)	1	San Carlos Canton
	United Barva (Broad Front+Patriotic Alliance)	1	Barva Canton

References

Bruce M. Wilson and Juan Carlos Rodríguez-Cordero: "The general election in Costa Rica, February 2010". In Electoral Studies, Volume 30, Issue 1, March 2011, pages 231-234.