Costa Rica begins manual recount of votes in its tightest race
ever
AFP
SAN JOSE
Petroleumworld.com 02 09 06
Costa Rican election officials began a manual recount of votes
Tuesday, after the tightest election in its history left former
president Oscar Arias with a razor-thin lead over center-left
rival Otton Solis.
"Today at 8:00 am (1400 GMT), we began the counting of votes
under the supervision of Judge Oscar Fonseca and the judges of
the Supreme Electoral Tribunal," Ana Maria Jimenez, the tribunal's
chief of protocol, announced.
A two-week manual recount of votes was called in Costa Rica on
Monday, a day after just 3,648 votes separated the candidates
in the Central American country's polls.
With 87.3 percent of ballots counted, Arias led with 40.5 percent
of the vote against 40.3 percent for Solis, prompting Fonseca
to announce a two-week manual recount of all ballots.
The announcement of a second count came Monday after numerous
government unions demanded that the council have a vote-by-vote
count before announcing the winner.
Neither candidate dared to claim victory or concede defeat, as
the council said it would not complete the first vote tally until
Wednesday.
The unofficial election results were contrary to all of the pre-election
opinion polls, which had Arias favored by a solid 10 to 20 percentage
points.
Analysts said the result would be the tightest in Costa Rica's
election history.
To be elected president in Costa Rica, a candidate needs to top
40 percent of the total vote. If two candidates are both over
40 percent, the one with the most votes wins.
AFP
02/08/06
Copyright
© 2006 AFP. All rights reserved
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