Costa Rica Prez Race: Close race between Nobel Laureate & Anti-CAFTA cand.

[LynneSin]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060206/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/costa_rica_elections

Costa Rica Presidential Race Very Close

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica - Electoral officials sorted the last uncounted votes Monday in Costa Rica's surprisingly close presidential election between Nobel Peace laureate Oscar Arias and an economist critical of the country's free trade pact with the United States.
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Arias, a former president who helped end the bloody conflicts that wracked Central America in the 1980s, had the narrowest of leads over Otton Solis of the Citizens' Action Party, an economist who contends the Central American Free Trade Agreement would hurt Costa Rican farmers and should be renegotiated.

With 85 percent of the votes counted from Sunday's election, Arias, of the center-right National Liberation Party, had 40.6 percent support compared with 40.2 percent for Solis.

Pre-election polls predicted that Solis would receive just over a quarter of the vote.

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This should be interesting!! Personally I think both candidates would be excellent for CR but if the Anti-CAFTA one wins you can bet he's going to push for other Central American countries to abandon CAFTA. Could this guy become another Chavez and a thorn in Bush's side?