With almost all constituencies reporting, conservative economist Rodrigo Chaves had 53% of the vote, compared to 47% for former President José Figueres Ferrer, the Supreme Electoral Court said. More than 42% of eligible voters did not vote, an unusually low turnout for the country, reflecting Costa Rica’s lack of enthusiasm for candidates. In his winning speech late Sunday, Chaves called for unity in tackling issues such as unemployment and the growing budget deficit. “For me this is not a medal or a trophy, but rather a huge responsibility, full of challenges and difficulties that we will all solve,” he said. “Costa Rica, the best is yet to come!” said Chaves before celebrating his supporters. Its inauguration is scheduled for May 8. Figueres congratulated Chavez and wished him all the best, adding that he continued to believe that Costa Rica was in a “deep crisis” and that he was willing to help it recover. Both men ran a bruising campaign. Chaves’s campaign is under investigation by the election authorities for allegedly managing an illegal parallel financial structure. He has also been scandalized by a sexual harassment scandal that drove him out of the World Bank. While working at the bank, he was accused of sexual harassment by several women, was eventually demoted and then resigned. He denied the allegations. The World Bank’s administrative court last year criticized the way the case was initially handled internally. The court noted that an internal investigation found that from 2008 to 2013 Chaves watched, made unwanted comments about physical appearance, repeated sexual connotations and unwanted sexual projections to many bank employees. These details were repeated by the bank’s human resources department in a letter to Chaves, but he decided to impose sanctions on him for misconduct and not sexual harassment. “The facts of the present case show that [Chaves’s] “His behavior was sexual in nature and that he knew or should have known that his behavior was undesirable,” the court wrote. The court also noted that in the process, the current vice president of the bank for human resources said in his testimony “that the indisputable facts are legally equivalent to sexual harassment”. Political analyst Francisco Barahona said the Costa Rican lack of enthusiasm, as evidenced by the low turnout, was the result of the many personal attacks that characterized the campaign. “For many people it is a shame to say they voted for one or the other, and many prefer to say they will not vote for either candidate or simply do not go to the polls,” Barahona added.
