SAN JOSÉ, Costa Rica — Laura Fernández, a candidate handpicked by the departing president as his successor, won Costa Rica’s presidential election on Sunday after running on a tough-on-crime platform, according to a preliminary count of the votes.

The 39-year-old political scientist is the second woman to become president in Costa Rica.

Fernández, capitalizing on President Rodrigo Chaves’ popularity, reached the threshold needed to win in the first round of voting, a feat no presidential candidate had achieved in more than a decade.

Nearly 50% of the Votes

Early results showed she received nearly 50% of the votes, while her closest opponents, a technocrat and a former first lady, trailed significantly at 33% and about 5%, respectively. As of Sunday evening local time, about 85% of the country’s ballots had been processed.

The country’s electoral authority found last year that Chaves had used his power in office to campaign for Fernández, a tactic banned by the Constitution. He was ineligible to seek a consecutive term but is considered likely to receive a chief position in the new Cabinet.

With her victory, Chaves’ populist movement, which has moved to dismantle many of the country’s institutions — including by overhauling the Supreme Court and obstructing the work of watchdog agencies — will remain in power for at least four more years.

Once the most peaceful nation in Central America, Costa Rica is now reckoning with an escalation of violence fueled by transnational drug trafficking. Since 2023, the country has recorded nearly 900 homicides every year, figures that are about 50% higher than before Chaves took office in 2022.

Beyond security, Fernández has leaned into a deeply conservative platform.

She has pledged to double prison sentences for women who have abortions, to up to six years. And she has courted evangelical leaders, promising them a decisive role in selecting the heads of her education and health ministries.

Fernández asked voters to give her party, Pueblo Soberano, a supermajority in her nation’s Legislative Assembly that would allow her party to appoint a slate of loyalist magistrates and push through constitutional amendments that would let presidents seek a consecutive term.

The final makeup of the legislature will become clear in the coming days as electoral officials continue counting votes.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Emiliano Rodríguez Mega and David Bolaños/César Rodríguez
c. 2026 The New York Times Company