The centre-left candidate Carlos Alvarado, a former musician, won the run-off held on Sunday 1 April in Costa Rica and was elected president of the Central American nation with 60.7 per cent of the vote. His namesake evangelical pastor Fabricio Alvarado, who stood for the right-wing Restauración Nacional party, failed to surpass 40 per cent.

"Now we must unite our country"

When the results were announced, thousands of supporters of the 38-year-old former Labour Minister poured into the streets to celebrate the victory, waving the flags of the Partido Acción Ciudadana. "This election has allowed us to look at ourselves in the mirror. And in the mirror we saw different points of view, we observed the inequalities that divide us, we understood that we must work to guarantee more opportunities, especially in certain areas. Now our task will be to unite our country," the new president declared.

The programme on the basis of which he will lead Costa Rica is founded on a far more "interventionist" approach by the state in the national economy and on the introduction of new civil rights, starting with marriage between same-sex couples. On 9 January, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights had invited the country to recognise same-sex marriage, making the issue a central one in the electoral campaign.

Costa Rica: champion of progressivism in Central America

A progressive tendency is, moreover, a fundamental characteristic of Costa Rica's political system. The policies pursued over time have made it possible, for example, to achieve a literacy rate of 97.5 per cent, thanks to spending on education equivalent to seven per cent of gross domestic product, according to figures provided by Unesco.