Right-wing candidate Laura Fernandez wins Costa Rica presidential race
While election authorities have yet to officially declare Fernandez the winner of the 2026 general election, some have already celebrated the conservative’s decisive victory.
Right-wing candidate Laura Fernandez has won Costa Rica's presidential election by a landslide after promising to crack down hard on rising violence linked to the cocaine trade.
At 88.43 percent of polling stations counted, Fernandez Delgado remains at the top of the presidential race with 48.51 percent of the vote, or just over 1 million ballots. The right-wing candidate is set to win the election in the first round, having surpassed the 40 percent threshold required by law.
Leftist runner-up Alvaro Ramos remained stalled at 33.32 percent of the vote, while the Liberal Party secured 750,585 votes.
Twenty contenders were seeking the presidency, but no candidate other than Fernandez and Ramos reached 5 percent in the preliminary and partial results.
Neighbours and allies such as Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele – whom the virtual winner has said she intends to model her security strategy after – have congratulated Fernandez on her virtual victory.
“I have just congratulated, via telephone, the president-elect of Costa Rica, Laura Fernandez. I wish her the greatest success in her administration and all the best to the beloved brotherly people of Costa Rica,” Bukele wrote on X.
Costa Ricans also voted for the 57-seat National Assembly. While Chaves’ party is expected to make gains, it is unlikely to secure the supermajority needed to enact major constitutional changes.
Replicating Bukele’s model
Fernandez pledged to continue the policies of term-limited President Rodrigo Chaves, under whom she previously served as minister of national planning and later as minister of the presidency. Backed by Chaves, she entered the race as the frontrunner and positioned herself as his political successor.
The historically peaceful Central American nation’s crime surge in recent years could be a deciding factor for many voters. Some fault Chaves' presidency for failing to bring those rates down, but many see his confrontational style as the best chance for Costa Rica to tame the violence.
Laura Fernandez, the right-wing political scientist elected president of Costa Rica, is the latest Latin American politician to achieve victory by emulating the self-described "world's coolest dictator," Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele.
Fernandez vows to complete a high-security mega-prison modelled on El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center and to impose emergency measures in crime hotspots.
Rights groups have warned that replicating Bukele’s model, which has delivered dramatic crime reductions, could undermine civil liberties by expanding detention without charge.