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Communist Jose María Villalta Florez-Estrada finished third with 17%

Election results in Costa Rica



The man opponents branded a communist finished in third place in the Costa Rican presidential elections Sunday.

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He is Jose María Villalta Florez-Estrada, who ran as the candidate of Frente Amplio. He received just 17.14 percent of the popular vote, according to official but preliminary figures. Two candidates who finished ahead of him will compete in a runoff April 6. They are Johnny Araya Monge, candidate of Liberación Nacional, and Luís Guillermo Solís of Acción Ciudadana. Solis, in an unexpected showing, got 30.95 percent. He ran on an anti-corruption platform. Araya, the former mayor of San José, got 29.59 percent. His campaign hoped for a first-round victory. A candidate needed 40 percent to win outright. Liberación is the long-time official party and counts two-time former president Óscar Arias Sánchez and current President Laura Chinchilla among its members. Araya tried to distance himself from Ms. Chinchilla, whose administration has been plagued by missteps and corruption allegations. Acción Ciudadana is only 13 years old and contains many former members of Liberación. It is considered more progressive in social policy and taxation. Two other major candidates finished fourth and fifth, including Otto Guevara, the libertarian party candidate who got 11.19 percent. Villalta's candidacy was watched closely internationally because he favors price control, heavy taxes on corporations and a government program opponents said resembled that of Cuba and Venezuela.


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Jay Brodell, a newspaper reporter and editor since 1964, is the editor of A.M. Costa Rica.

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