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Arias leads by fraction in tight Costa Rica vote

Posted on: Monday, 6 February 2006, 01:51 CST

By Chris Aspin

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (Reuters) - Costa Rica's Nobel Peace laureate Oscar Arias, a former president who backs a free trade pact with the United States, clung to a tiny lead in a cliffhanger presidential election on Sunday,

With results from half of polling stations counted, social democrat Arias had 40.7 percent of the vote against 40.3 percent for Otton Solis, who was once his planning minister.

Supporters of both men nervously watched computer screens in their party headquarters as results trickled in.

Arias, 65, had been widely tipped to win, with the only doubt being whether he would reach the 40 percent needed to avoid a runoff.

"This is not resolved," Epsy Campbell, Solis' running mate, told reporters.

"We are going to wait with a lot of patience," said Solis, a technocrat and centrist for the Citizen Action Party.

A clear Arias victory would 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.

Solis, 51, seeks to renegotiate parts of the pact, which came into force last month in Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic and the United States.

Arias needed to do well in elections for Congress, also on Sunday, to be assured of pushing the trade deal through. His National Liberation Party looked like it would win the most congressional seats but without an absolute majority.

Television exit polls had given Arias a wider lead at 45 percent. The top two candidates will go to a second round of voting on April 2 no one gets 40 percent of the vote.

RESTORING NATIONAL PRIDE

Arias, the scion of a rich coffee family, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987 for his efforts to end civil conflicts in neighboring Central American countries.

He ruled Costa Rica, roughly the size of Vermont and New Hampshire combined, from 1986 to 1990 when the country stood out as a haven of peace in a region torn by civil war.

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.

Home to four million people, Costa Rica sees itself as an orderly country in a part of the world blighted by crime, mass emigration and instability.

But the jungle-clad nation has been stunned by a series of corruption scandals in recent years.

Former presidents Rafael Angel Calderon and Miguel Angel Rodriguez were both jailed briefly in 2004 on charges of taking kickbacks from foreign companies.

"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.

Supporters 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.

Although he backs free trade, Arias criticized Washington for neglecting Central America since the 1980s, when the United States sent military aid to stop leftist rebel insurgencies.

"The U.S. government has become more egotistical since the Cold War. Instead of rewarding us for putting down arms, they punished us," he told a Mexican radio station.

Often accused in Costa Rica of being arrogant, Arias compares himself to former U.S. President Bill Clinton.

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.

(Additional reporting by John McPhaul and Lorraine Orlandi)

Source: REUTERS

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