{"id":43443,"date":"2026-02-02T04:32:40","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T04:32:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=43443"},"modified":"2026-02-02T04:32:40","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T04:32:40","slug":"laura-fernandez-leads-early-results-in-costa-ricas-presidential-election-elections-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=43443","title":{"rendered":"Laura Fernandez leads early results in Costa Rica\u2019s presidential election | Elections News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n<\/p>\n<p><strong aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"post-label__text\">DEVELOPING STORY<\/strong><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">DEVELOPING STORY, <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"article__subhead\"><em>Right-wing candidate from the governing PPSO leads presidential race with 53.01 percent of the vote, early results show.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Published On 2 Feb 2026<\/span><span aria-hidden=\"true\">2 Feb 2026<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Click here to share on social media<\/p>\n<p>share2<\/p>\n<p class=\"rich-share__social-text\">Share<\/p>\n<p>The right-wing law-and-order candidate, Laura Fernandez, has taken a commanding lead in Costa Rica\u2019s presidential election, according to early results.<\/p>\n<p>With ballots from 31 percent of polling stations counted late on Sunday, Fernandez, of the governing Sovereign People Party (PPSO), had 53.01 percent of the vote, the results showed.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"more-on__heading\">Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n<p><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">list of 3 items<\/span><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">end of list<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Alvaro Ramos of the centre-left National Liberation Party \u200dwas in second place \u2060with 30.05 percent, while former First Lady Claudia Dobles was in third place with 3.9 percent.<\/p>\n<p>Fernandez \u200cneeds at \u200cleast 40 percent to win the election outright and avoid \u200ca run-off on April 5.<\/p>\n<p>The 39-year-old politician is the handpicked successor of incumbent President Rodrigo Chaves, and campaigned on continuing his tough security policies.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight:400\">The historically peaceful Central American nation\u2019s crime surge in recent years could be a deciding factor for many voters. Some fault Chaves\u2019s presidency for failing to bring the rates down, but many see his confrontational style as the best chance for Costa Rica to tame the violence.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight:400\">Fernandez was previously Chaves\u2019s minister of national planning and economic policy and, more recently, his minister of the presidency.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight:400\">Costa Ricans also voted for the 57-seat National Assembly. Chaves\u2019s party is expected to make gains, but perhaps not achieve the supermajority he and Fernandez have called for, which would allow their party to choose Supreme Court magistrates, for example.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight:400\">Twenty contenders were seeking the presidency, but no candidate other than Fernandez and Ramos reached 5 percent in the preliminary and partial results.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY, Right-wing candidate from the governing PPSO leads presidential race with 53.01 percent of the vote, early results show. Published On 2 Feb 20262 Feb 2026 Click here to share on social media share2 Share The right-wing law-and-order candidate, Laura Fernandez, has taken a commanding lead in Costa Rica\u2019s presidential election, according to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43444,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[2355,442,4668,3580,22724,11708,4763,150,3888,778,22725],"class_list":{"0":"post-43443","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics","8":"tag-costa","9":"tag-early","10":"tag-election","11":"tag-elections","12":"tag-fernandez","13":"tag-laura","14":"tag-leads","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-presidential","17":"tag-results","18":"tag-ricas"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/43444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}