General elections were held in Costa Rica on 6 February 2022, to elect the president, two vice-presidents, and all 57 deputies of the Legislative Assembly. As none of the presidential nominees obtained at least 40% of the votes, a runoff was held on 3 April 2022, between the top two candidates, José María Figueres and Rodrigo Chaves Robles.
Rodrigo Chaves Robles of the Social Democratic Progress Party, a former official of the World Bank and former Minister of Finance with an anti-establishment reputation, received 53% of the vote in the run-off ballot and was declared president-elect by the Electoral Tribunal. Rival candidate and former president José Maria Figueres of the National Liberation Party received 47% of the vote and conceded defeat.
Electoral system
The President of Costa Rica is elected using a modified two-round system in which a candidate must receive at least 40% of the vote to win in the first round; if no candidate wins in the first round, a runoff is held between the two candidates with most votes.
The 57 members of the Legislative Assembly are elected using closed list proportional representation through the largest remainder method from seven multi-member constituencies with between four and 19 seats, which are based on the seven provinces. Party lists were required to alternate between male and female candidates, with parties also required to have three or four of their seven regional lists headed by a female candidate.
Background
In the previous election, a second electoral round was held, as neither political party had obtained 40% of the vote. This was only the third time in history that a second round had been held. The two candidates with the most support were the then-deputy, journalist, preacher, and Christian music singer Fabricio Alvarado Muñoz of the conservative National Restoration party, and the former Minister of Labor, journalist and writer Carlos Alvarado Quesada of the ruling Citizens' Action. The election was marked by social and religious issues that included issues such as same-sex marriage, the secular state, and sex education. Carlos Alvarado was the winner in the second round by a wide margin.
The Constitution of Costa Rica prohibits the incumbent president from serving consecutive terms, making incumbent president Carlos Alvarado Quesada ineligible to run in 2022. Additionally, government ministers and the directors or managers of autonomous institutions must resign twelve months before the election is held if they wish to run for the presidency or vice-presidency.
Candidates
Presidential candidates
The Supreme Electoral Court approved twenty-five parties and their nominated candidates for the presidency. The ballot printing process started in December 2021, with the candidates shown on the following table.
Declined party inscriptions
- Costa Rican Renewal Party: Nominated Camilo Rodríguez Chaverri for the presidency, but their documentation was incomplete and the party was not allowed to run.
- Democratic Force: Former Libertarian vice presidential candidate and television presenter Viviam Quesada also announced her presidential candidacy through Democratic Force. The party was the only that submitted the documentation on physical paper printouts, and some of the required documentation was missing so the party was not allowed to run.
Primaries and party conferences
Citizens' Action Party
The National Assembly of the Citizen Action Party held face-to-face assemblies, between April and July, to renew its structures in the country's cantons and provinces.
Lawmaker Welmer Ramos was elected in the primaries, winning by a narrow margin over fellow deputy Carolina Hidalgo and former Sports Minister Hernán Solano.
National Liberation Party
The National Liberation Party, the main opposition force, held its primary, known as the National Liberation Convention, on 6 June 2021, electing former President José María Figueres Olsen as a nominee. Political scientist Claudio Alpízar Otoya, former deputy and two-time presidential candidate Rolando Araya Monge, and Carlos Benavides Jiménez and Roberto Thompson Chacón, deputies for the 2018–2022 period, also participated in this process. Rolando Araya Monge quit the National Liberation Party and joined A Just Costa Rica as the presidential candidate.
The Social Christian Unity Party held its National Convention on 27 June 2021. Erwen Masís Castro and Pedro Muñoz Fonseca, deputies for the 2018–2022 period, and the former vice president (2002–2006) Lineth Saborío Chaverri, participated in the process, and Saborío was elected as the presidential candidate.
Other parties/coalitions
Several former candidates who participated in the process have already announced their interest in being candidates again. Notably, in most cases, these candidates resigned from the parties for which they tried to obtain the presidency and began the processes of founding new political groups.
- A Just Costa Rica: Independent deputy Dragos Dolanescu Valenciano announced the creation of a new political formation called A Just Costa Rica after his departure from the Social Christian Republican Party following an accusation lodged by the party authorities against him for corruption. Although he announced that he would be measuring the popular support for a possible candidacy Rolando Araya Monge was selected as the presidential candidate for the party; he finished in second place in the PLN primary.
- Costa Rican Social Democratic Movement: Physician Roulan Jiménez Chavarría will run for president together with Rubén Vargas, a taxi service representative.
- Social Democratic Progress: The former Minister of Finance of the Alvarado Quesada administration and former World Bank official, Rodrigo Chaves Robles, has held meetings with different sectors and representatives of seven political parties, including the Republican Social Christian and National Integration parties to propose a programmatic proposal and a possible electoral coalition in which, presumably, he could be the candidate. According to Chaves, "I've told them that, first of all, you cannot talk about a long trip if you do not have a vehicle. Secondly, you can much less talk about the driver of a vehicle that does not exist. But I agree with them that in this country, approximately 60 percent of the voters do not find representation in any of the existing parties or feel the need to support them." Chaves affirmed at the end of February 2021 that there are seven participating parties, three already registered: Republican Social Christian, National Integration (with parliamentary representation) and Social Democratic Progress Party, alongside four in the process of registration: United for Costa Rica, Our Town and the Costa Rican Pacific Union and that they have not defined the candidates for president and vice-presidents. At the end of May, the Republican Social Christian Party and Chaves announced their separation, affirming ideological incompatibilities and breach of agreements, including the candidacy of two-time Republican candidate Rodolfo Hernández for deputy for San José. In July, Chaves announced his candidacy with the recently founded Social Democratic Progress Party.
- Liberal Union: Former Libertarian Movement leader Otto Guevara left the Libertarian Movement after the party went bankrupt and in economic disarray, and founded the Liberal Union Party. The former deputy and former Libertarian presidential candidate Federico Guillermo Malavassi Calvo announced his presidential nomination with Guevara as deputy candidate on the party list.
- Libertarian Movement: Lawyer and financier with a neoliberal tendency, Carlos Valenciano Kamer, known for suing Célimo Guido during the demonstrations of the National Rescue Movement at the end of 2020, was announced as a candidate by the libertarian party, but he quit some months after. The party nominated Luis Alberto Cordero Arias as the presidential candidate.
- National Encounter: Former deputy Óscar Campos, organizer of blockades and protests against the government in 2018, founded this party.
- National Restoration: This party, that held an important role in the last election, nominated the former president of the Legislative Assembly, Eduardo Cruickshank.
- New Generation Party: Sergio Mena Díaz would be repeating for the third time the presidential candidacy with a double nomination for deputy also for the third time for New Generation.
- New Republic: Fabricio Alvarado, who was the first place of the first round and runner-up of the previous election, announced his separation from the party for which he was a deputy and candidate, and create the New Republic Party, although he assures that this would be a secular and non-Christian party unlike its predecessor.
- Our People: The former Minister of the Presidency of Costa Rica and former candidate (twice) of the Social Christian Unity Party Rodolfo Piza Rocafort announced that he would be participating but this time for the Our People Party, a provincial party in the process of being constituted on a national scale. Our People Party was a provincial political party founded mostly by former Social Christian Unity Party members and converted to the national level.
- Social Christian Republican Party: The party considered the former minister Rodrigo Chaves as presidential candidate and also former President Rafael Ángel Calderón Fournier was asked to run, but he declined, arguing for health reasons. Nomination finally went to three-time candidate Rodolfo Hernández who was also a candidate in 2014 and 2018.
- United We Can: Natalia Díaz Quintana, former deputy and former presidential candidate within the Libertarian Movement created a new liberal party called United We Can. Díaz had previously resigned from the Libertarian Movement and even gave her adhesion to the candidate of the National Liberation Party Antonio Álvarez Desanti in the 2018 election. Diaz was ratified as presidential nominee on 26 June.
Failed coalitions proposal
As of the legal deadline for the inscription of alliances, 8 August 2021, no party entered a coalition, but some attempts were made by some of the right-wing parties.
Attempted coalitions
At the beginning of 2020, the presidents of Social Christian Unity Party, Christian Democratic Alliance and Liberal Union began negotiations for the creation of a conservative-liberal right-wing coalition with the self-proclaimed goal of preventing a third government of the Citizen Action Party. Although Natalia Díaz Quintana of Unidos Podemos was invited, she declined to participate, preferring to fight the elections alone. The participation of Eliécer Feinzaig Mintz of the Progressive Liberal Party in the negotiations was reported in principle, but their representatives later denied it.
The proposal for a Christian-liberal coalition was also promoted by former Social Christian president Miguel Ángel Rodríguez Echeverría. However, the proposal was rejected in the National Assembly of the Social Christian Unity Party.
Coalition for Change
On 21 June 2021, Cartago mayor Mario Redondo Poveda and former Deputy Minister of Transportation Eliécer Feinzaig Mintz, respectively the presidents of the Christian Democratic Alliance and Progressive Liberal Party, announced the "Coalition for Change". This would be the first coalition of right-wing parties to participate in a presidential election since the Unity Coalition in 1978, and the first overall since United Left in 2006.
On 25 June Redondo individually abandoned the Coalition due to questionings after it was made public that he held secret meetings with one of the companies involved in the Cochinilla judicial case scandal.
Personalities that attempted to run
- Juan Diego Castro Fernández: One of the first to make the announcement was criminal lawyer and former Justice Minister Juan Diego Castro, who announced the creation of a new party called "Reconstruction" after his unfriendly break with the National Integration Party. Castro announced in January 2021, he was cancelling the process of forming the party due to difficulties in the registration process, formally requesting the Supreme Electoral Tribunal for the filing. In 2021 Castro Fernández confirmed to Teletica that he would be a presidential candidate for the second time, although he did not clarify by which group, assuring that he is evaluating being one by a party or coalition. He only completely ruled out the return to being one by National Integration, from which he had an unfriendly exit.
Campaign
Voters' concerns included high unemployment (nearly 20 percent), rising costs of living, corruption and, to a lesser extent, immigration.