Pro-trade Arias wins Costa Rica election - polls
Posted on: Sunday, 5 February 2006, 20:55 CST
By Chris Aspin
SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (Reuters) - Nobel Peace Prize winner and former president Oscar Arias won Costa Rica's presidential election on Sunday and is likely to avoid a second round of voting in April, TV exit polls showed.
Arias, a 65-year-old social democrat, garnered 45 percent of the votes, above the 40 percent required for a first-round victory, surveys for two television channels said.
Otton Solis, a former planning minister, trailed Arias. One poll gave him 26 percent, while another had him on 37 percent.
Official results were due later on Sunday.
An Arias victory will boost U.S. President George W. Bush's free trade plans in the region. Arias wants Costa Rica's Congress to drop its opposition to ratifying a trade agreement between the United States and Central America, known as CAFTA.
But Arias needs to do well in elections for Congress, also on Sunday, to be assured of pushing the trade pact through.
Costa Rica's president from 1986-1990, Arias won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987 for his efforts to end civil conflicts in neighboring Central American countries.
He won support for his comeback from voters angry at recent governments because of a series of corruption scandals.
"People are very disillusioned because in recent elections we have not been able to elect a good president and because two former presidents were corrupt," said Lourdes Moras, 34, a graphic designer who voted in the capital city.
Costa Rica's reputation as the most orderly country in a difficult region took a battering when ex-presidents Rafael Angel Calderon and Miguel Angel Rodriguez were both jailed briefly in 2004 on charges of taking kickbacks from foreign companies.
NATIONAL PRIDE
Costa Rica, a major coffee producer, abolished its army almost 60 years ago and was stable in the 1980s when its neighbors were ravaged by civil war.
Many voters looked to Arias, the country's most famous son, to help restore national pride.
"He has the experience that the other candidates lack," said Vicente Martin, 43, a public works employee.
In a telephone interview with Mexican radio before the polls closed, Arias criticized the United States for neglecting Central America since the end of the Cold War, when Washington sent military aid to stop leftist rebel insurgencies.
"Instead of rewarding us for putting down arms, they punished us," said Arias.
Often accused in Costa Rica of being arrogant, Arias compares himself to former U.S. President Bill Clinton.
His main rival Solis, 51, a centrist who leads the Citizen Action Party, backs the CAFTA deal but wants to renegotiate parts of it.
Leftists have won a string of recent elections in Latin America but the left in Costa Rica is split into several factions with virtually no chance of grabbing power.
Costa Rica's long-standing two-party system has been shaken by the scandals and the Social Christian Unity Party of current President Abel Pacheco has little support now.
(Additional reporting by John McPhaul)
Source: REUTERS
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