General elections will be held in Costa Rica this Sunday the 6th of February 2022. The election results play a big part in the lives of many Nicaraguans living in Costa Rica (legal or otherwise). There are 40,000 Nicaraguans that are now Citizens of Costa Rica. They are joined by about 350,000 Nicaraguans who call Costa Rica home.
The country is a democratic republic and voters will be choosing their 49th president, 2 vice-presidents (in 1949 the Constitution of Costa Rica established two VP positions) and 57 deputies of the Legislative Assembly.
The presidential term is 4 years. In 2005, the Supreme Court amended the ban on reelection allowed the incumbent president to be eligible to run again after waiting for at least eight years (two terms) after leaving office.
The president must be Costa Rican by birth and a Costa Rica Citizen. They must have secular status (neutral in matters of religion) and be more than thirty years old.
In order to win the vote, a presidential candidate needs to receive at least 40 percent of the votes in the first ballot to win outright. Failing that, there will be a second ballot/runoff. For the 2022 election, that will be held on April 3rd 2022.
The 57 representatives for the Legislative Assembly (Congress) are elected by a “closed list proportional representation” of each of the seven provinces; San Jose, Heredia, Cartago, Guanacaste, Puntarenas, Alajuela and Limón. The assembly typically has a number of parties making up the 57 seats (the current assembly has 6 different parties represented). These positions are decided by the first ballot.
Voting in the General Elections in Costa Rica is considered obligatory, but this is not enforced. To be eligible to vote in a Costa Rica election you must have reached 18 years of age and possess the required identification. Foreigners naturalized as Costa Rican citizens can also vote. Voter turnout in the last (2018) election was 66% with 2,183,296 valid votes cast out of 3,322,329 registered voters.
Costa Rica abolished its military in 1948 following the end of a short civil war. Therefore, unlike most other countries, the president is not known as a commander-in-chief. However, the constitution does describe him as commander-in-chief of the civil defense public forces. Although Costa Rica has no standing army, it does have a strong domestic police force, security forces and a Coast Guard.
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Previously in Nica-Biz; Costa Rican Migrants to Receive Covid-19 Vaccine
