Costa Rica Voted in a New President, and Something Kind of Wild Happened

As I mentioned in my New Monroe Doctrine Column on Friday, Costa Rica was set to go to the polls on Sunday and vote in a new president. It was highly likely that Laura Fernández, the conservative, would win, though it wasn't clear that she would get enough votes to avoid a run-off because there were so many candidates — something like 20 — and because there were many, many undecided voters heading into the weekend. 

Well, Fernández won, so no real surprises there, but how she won is incredibly interesting and yet another sign of the times in the Western Hemisphere. 

Just to recap, Costa Rica already had a conservative president, Rodrigo Chaves, who was elected in 2022. Fernández was his hand-picked candidate and ideological match, as well as his former chief of staff, so this wasn't a big change like we've seen in the most recent elections in the hemisphere, like in Chile, Bolivia, Honduras, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. To put it in United States terms, if Donald Trump had endorsed a candidate, she would have been it. 

The Costa Rican people tend to be pretty socially conservative, though I've noticed a lot of U.S. leftists moving down there lately, attempting to ruin it, I suppose, but that's a story for another day.  

But what actually happened does fall right in line with that big swing to the right that I've been reporting on for months. 

First of all, Fernández won outright. There will be no runoff. Sources vary on this, but last I checked, around 94% of the vote was counted, and she was much closer to 50% than the 40% needed to avoid the run-off, so that's huge given how many candidates there were and how up in the air all the polling was going into it. That's also the first time since 2010 that a Costa Rican presidential candidate has won without a run-off, too.  

However, Sunday wasn't just a presidential election — the Legislative Assembly, which has 57 seats — was also up for grabs. They need 29 for a simple majority, and Fernández's party secured 31. So, she'll be able to pass her legislation through without much blowback. To put that in perspective, when Chaves was elected in 2022, the party only had 10 seats, and everything was so fragmented that there was no majority. Many see this as a mandate of Chavismo — not to be confused with the dying Chavismo of Venezuela. The Costa Rican kind is the good kind. Chaves was a disruptor, and the people like what he did. He will likely have a role in her government.  

Even better, the center-left opposition is more fractured than ever. No one predicted any of this, but it falls right in line with what's happening in our hemisphere.

Fernández is socially conservative, has a strong Catholic faith, and is very pro-family values. She also has crazy high support from evangelical groups. Like Chaves, she uses anti-establishment rhetoric and promised "change will be deep and irreversible" during her victory speech. 

She also promises to be tougher on immigration and extremely tough on crime, which is something Costa Rica needs right now, as crime, particularly narco-related organized crime, is on the rise in that country. That may have been the biggest factor driving people to the polls — there was a higher than usual turnout (over 69% compared to 2022's 60%). She's promised some Nayib Bukele El Salvador-style crackdowns, and Costa Rica, under Chaves, is currently building its own mega-prison, similar to Bukele's Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT).  

As a matter of fact, Bukele was one of the first people to congratulate her on Sunday night. "I have just congratulated by phone the President-elect of Costa Rica, Laura Fernández," he posted on X. "I wish her the greatest success in her Government and all the best for the dear brotherly people of Costa Rica."

If you're keeping up with the hemisphere's rightward swing that we hope continues this year, we still have Peru, Colombia, and Brazil to go. Costa Rica went even better than expected, so here's hoping those countries do too. I'll keep you posted. 

https://pjmedia.com/sarah-anderson/2026/02/02/costa-rica-voted-in-a-new-president-and-something-kind-of-wild-happened-n4949010