Costa Rican general election, 2010

Costa Rican general election, 2010

← 2006 February 7, 2010 2014 →
Turnout	69.1%
Candidate Laura Chinchilla Miranda Ottón Solís Fallas Otto Guevara Guth Party National Liberation Citizens' Action Libertarian Movement Home state San José San José San José Percentage 46.91% 25.06% 20.92% Presidential vote 896,516 478.877 399.788 Legislative vote 708,043 334,636 275,518 Seats 24 11 9 Seat change 1 6 3   Candidate Luis Fishman Zonzinski Óscar Lopez Arias Mayra González León Party Social Christian Unity Accessibility without Exclusion Costa Rican Renewal Home state San José San José San José Percentage 3.8% 1% 0.9% Presidential vote 74.114 36.104 13.945 Legislative vote 155,047 171,858 73,150 Seats 6 4 1 Seat change 1 3 1   Candidate Eugenio Trejos Benavides Party Broad Front Home state Heredia Percentage 0.6% Presidential vote 6.782 Legislative vote 68,987 Seats 1 Seat change No change
In green provinces won by Chinchilla
President before election Oscar Arias National Liberation Elected President Laura Chinchilla National Liberation

Oscar Arias
National Liberation

Laura Chinchilla
National Liberation

Costa Rica held parliamentary and presidential elections on February 7, 2010. The ruling party before the election, the center-left National Liberation Party, put forward former Vice-President Laura Chinchilla as its presidential candidate, while the libertarian, Movimiento Libertario nominated former legislator Otto Guevara. Opinion polls before voting started consistently put Chinchilla as the front-runner, a trend confirmed in the election-night count, which showed her garnering 46.76% of the vote.

The election was supervised by observers from several countries, as well as from the Organization of American States. The incumbent President, Óscar Arias, was ineligible to run for a second consecutive term.

Candidates included:

The swifting from a two-party system to a multi-party system was much more evident in this election

For the then three major parties; PLN, PAC and ML the voting for the presidential ballot was superior to the support in the legislative, as for example PLN presidential candidate Laura Chinchilla received 46% of the votes and PLN’s legislative ballot only 37%. Similarly PAC’s candidate Ottón Solís with 25% presidential against 17% legislative and Otto Guevara with 20% oppose to 14% legislative. Contrary to PUSC whose candidate Luis Fishman received 3% electoral support while his party received 8%.