Costa Rican general election, 2006

Costa Rica general election, 2006

← 2002 February 5, 2006 2010 →
Turnout	65.4%
Candidate Óscar Arias Sánchez Ottón Solís Fallas Otto Guevara Guth Party National Liberation Citizens' Action Libertarian Movement Home state Heredia San José San José Percentage 42.26% 41.11% 8.76% Presidential vote 664.551 646.382 137.710 Legislative vote 589,731 409,030 147,934 Seats 25 17 6 Seat change 6 3 No change   Candidate Ricardo Toledo Carranza Antonio Álvarez Desanti José Manuel Echandi Meza Party Social Christian Unity Union for Change National Union Home state San José San José San José Percentage 3.67% 2.52% 1.69% Presidential vote 57.655 39.557 26.593 Legislative vote 126,284 37,994 40,280 Seats 5 0 1 Seat change 14 First time Do not participate
In green provinces won by Arias and in yellow provinces won by Solís
President before election Abel Pacheco Social Christian Unity Elected President Oscar Arias National Liberation

Abel Pacheco
Social Christian Unity

Oscar Arias
National Liberation

General elections were held in Costa Rica on February 5, 2006. In the presidential election, Óscar Arias of the National Liberation Party (Partido Liberación Nacional), a former president and Nobel Peace Laureate, was victorious over Ottón Solís of the Citizens' Action Party (Partido Acción Ciudadana) and twelve other minor-party candidates. Although Arias was expected to win by a wide margin, the actual polling reports were unexpectedly close. However, early results showed the contest to be closer than it actually was. The preliminary official report, after 88.45% of the vote counted, showed the result for President of the Republic almost tied between Arias with 40.51% of the vote and Ottón Solís with 40.29%. Given the small difference of only 3250 votes, the Superior Electoral Tribunal announced that a manual count of all the votes would start immediately and no official winner would be announced until that process was completed, approximately two weeks after the election.

In the parliamentary election, the National Liberation Party won the mosts seats.

There were fourteen candidates running for the presidency in the 2006 elections. However, only a few rose in the polls above the error margin.

Arias had been seen as the front runner throughout the campaign. Arias served as President of Costa Rica from 1986 to 1990. He is best known worldwide for his role in the signing of the Esquipulas Peace Agreement which is regarded as the crucial plan which led to the eventual end to the series of civil wars that took place throughout Central America, most notably in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala, during the 1980s. For his role he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987. With the monetary portion of the award he started the Arias Foundation for Peace and Human Progress, an advocacy group for demilitarization, women's rights and conflict resolution through dialogue. Through this group Arias helped to settle conflicts throughout Latin America, participating in the process to demilitarize Haiti and Panama.