Arias, 64, a Social Democrat who won the Nobel Prize during his first presidency in the 1980s for his work to end Central Americas bloody civil wars, defeated Otton Solis of the Citizens Action Party by just 1.1%, one of the closest margins in Costa Ricas history, and he garnered only 40.9% of the total vote. Solis—who was backed by the radical and increasingly popular left-wing Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez—opposes Costa Ricas entrance into the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) with the U.S.
Solis stunning near-upset—pre-election voter polls suggested Arias would win handily—came close to adding Costa Rica to the growing list of Latin nations who have moved leftward in the past year, as voters grow increasingly frustrated with U.S.-backed capitalist reforms that only seem to have widened the regions epic wealth gap. Bolivia, Chile and Uruguay recently elected leftist heads of state; seven more Latin presidential elections are slated for this year, and leftist candidates are given a strong chance of winning as many as six of them. Hopefully, Arias can be a counterbalance against the leftist movements springing up in South America, says Lynda Solar, vice president of the American Chambers of Commerce in Latin America.
Costa Rica, largely immune to the dictatorships, corruption and grinding poverty that mark so many of its neighbors, has long been considered the Switzerland of Central America. But in recent years it has been plagued by a moribund economy and a string of presidential bribery scandals that have made it a ripe target for left-leaning pols like Solis. Arias, meanwhile, ran a bland campaign that seemed to rest on his Nobel laurels. Such a weighty name was supposed to sweep away any opponent, says political analyst Victor Ramirez, but [voters] proved it wasnt enough to reconquer a population soured by Costa Ricas current troubles.
But while the Bush Administration can breathe an electoral sigh of relief for once in Latin America, Arias still has to contend with Solis surprisingly large constituency—which will make it even harder to get Costa Ricans, the lone holdouts in Central America, to ratify CAFTA. As a result, what the Washington, D.C.-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs called the Bush Administrations alarmingly foundering Latin America policy still faces an uphill battle in Central America's Switzerland.
Clarification: In the article "Dodging a Bullet in Costa Rica", TIME described presidential election runner-up Otton Solis as having been "backed by the radical and increasingly popular left-wing Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez." While the Chavez government favored Solis' candidacy, Solis insists he distanced himself during his campaign from Chavez's more radical anti-U.S. policies. As Solis himself wrote in an email to TIME, "I am sure you know that I have been highly critical of Chavez populism and gut antagonism towards the USA. It seems that you have fallen into the cold war extremists view that 'either you are fully with me or you are against me'. The fact that we oppose CAFTA as it currently stands and that we have disagreed with some of the most simplisticneoliberal proposals, especially those which ignore the balanced socioeconomic path followed by Costa Rica, does not make me or my party leftist or pro Chavez."