Costa Rica in election nailbiter; Arias just ahead

By Chris Aspin

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (Reuters) – Battered by government
scandals, Costa Rica sunk further into uncertainty on Monday
when a presidential election that could decide the future of a
trade deal with Washington hung by a thread.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Oscar Arias, a former president,
held a minuscule lead over rival Otton Solis, whose campaign
team suggested they might dispute a loss.

With three-quarters of the vote counted from Sunday’s poll,
social democrat Arias was at 40.8 percent against rival Otton
Solis, once his planning minister, at 40 percent.

“We’re extremely tense. We’re suffering because this has
never happened in history,” said Arias supporter Jose Saborio,
54, at party headquarters.

Followers of both men cheered and waved flags when results
came in showing their candidate improving even by a fraction of
a point.

Costa Rica, long an island of stability in a region torn by
civil wars, poverty and crime, suffered a blow to its self
image in 2004 when two former presidents were briefly arrested
on allegations of taking bribes from foreign companies.

A third former leader is refusing to return from Europe to
face grilling on similar charges.

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.

Buoyed by an unexpectedly good showing, his opponents
hinted they would not accept defeat easily.

“Monday is going to be a long day,” Epsy Campbell, Solis’
running mate, told reporters. “Because after this process we
are going to check every one of the votes.”

An Arias victory would help U.S. President George W. Bush’s
free trade plans in the region. Arias wants Costa Rica’s
Congress to drop its opposition to the trade accord between the
United States and Central America, known as CAFTA.

Solis, who was planning minister in Arias’s 1986-1990
government, backs the plan mostly but wants to renegotiate it.
Costa Rica is the only signatory not to ratify the deal.

RESTORING NATIONAL PRIDE

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.

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

He ruled Costa Rica, roughly the size of Vermont and New
Hampshire combined, when the country stood out as a haven of
peace in a region torn by conflict.

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 taking power.

Costa Rica, a major coffee producer, abolished its army
almost 60 years ago but it 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.

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.

(Additional reporting by John McPhaul)