Rising crime, inequality and disenchantment: What’s at stake in Costa Rica’s elections

By Djenane Villanueva, Max Saltman, CNN

San José, Costa Rica (CNN) — Costa Rica heads to the polls this Sunday to pick a new president after an election season overshadowed by crime and political apathy.

Amid persisting violence from criminal groups in a country long-considered a peaceful tourist hub, polling reveals that Costa Ricans are most concerned about security this year. Voters are also distressed by the decline in their quality of life, as well as the country’s muddled political landscape – a fact indicated by the twenty candidates for president alone.

Taking the lead in national surveys among the score of contenders is a right-winger from the country’s ruling party: Laura Fernández, a 39-year-old former Minister of National Planning.

In Costa Rica, a candidate must obtain at least 40 percent of the vote to win the presidency in the first round. If no one reaches that threshold, the top two head to a runoff.

Fernández’s polling lead means she’s close to securing the presidency in the first round, according to the Center for Research and Political Studies of the University of Costa Rica (CIEP-UCR). Second place is occupied by nobody at all – more than a quarter of those CIEP-UCR surveyed are undecided.

Security in a country without an army

Costa Rica’s struggle with criminal violence in recent years is a cruel irony. The country has long been a model for peace. It was the first nation to abolish its armed forces, a point of national pride in a region marked by political turmoil.

Yet government figures show that the last three years have been some of the most violent in recent Costa Rican history, with 905 homicides in 2023, an all-time record. The government attributes much of the violence to drug trafficking. In January, the US Treasury alleged that the country has become a “key global cocaine transshipment point.”

Costa Rica is not alone in this trend, of course: crime-related fears drove thousands of Latin Americans to the polls in recent months, from Ecuador to Chile to Honduras. The region’s struggle against crime is overshadowed by one government in particular: El Salvador and its self-described “dictator” Nayib Bukele.

Bukele brought murder rates in El Salvador to historic lows through a gargantuan imprisonment campaign and police crackdown, but faces numerous allegations of human rights violations, especially regarding his notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).

Nonetheless, he remains extremely popular in Latin America. He’s also sought to promote his brand of iron-fist rule in Costa Rica, where the government broke ground on a CECOT-style prison last month with Bukele’s blessing.

“Nayib Bukele’s presence is important, legitimate, and honors us,” declared the retiring incumbent President Rodrigo Chaves at the groundbreaking ceremony.

José Andrés Díaz González, political scientist at Costa Rica’s National University in Heredia, told CNN that the security crisis is part and parcel with a decline in the country’s social services.

“The foundations of the social pact are being weakened,” Díaz said. “Health, with the accelerated deterioration of the Costa Rican Social Security Fund; education, as an engine of social mobility; and security, with the increase in homicides and the loss of the feeling of security in homes.”

Díaz pointed out that Costa Rica faces the same demographic cliff as many other countries: the population is getting older, threatening further strain on a safety net already coming apart at the seams.

“We are in a demographic transition that implies that fewer people will have to produce more,” Díaz explained. “In 15 or 20 years, the pension system will be under greater pressure, there will be fewer contributors, less tax revenues and greater demands for care for the elderly population.”

Economic growth – but not for everyone

According to a 2025 report from the State of the Nation Program (PEN), a local think tank, Costa Rica experienced an economic rebound in 2024 and the first half of 2025.

The country became the first in Central America to join the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in 2021, and that organization’s latest reports on Costa Rica also paint a rosy initial picture: an “improved” fiscal situation with declining unemployment, declining debt and tech products making up a growing share of the country’s exports.

Among peer nations, OECD reported, Costa Rica’s growth has been “more resilient and stronger.”

The upward-trending numbers, however, only show half of the story, according to PEN political scientist Leonardo Merino.

“Costa Rica has economic growth that is disengaged from people’s well-being,” Merino told CNN. He explained that much of the growth is concentrated in so-called “free trade zones,” which offer significant tax breaks and customs exemptions for investors.

“Free trade zones are the main engine of growth, but they account for only 12 percent of employment and around 15 percent of production,” said Merino. “The domestic market economy, where the majority of the population is, is growing little and has been abandoned.”

OECD concurred with that assessment, too, writing that “innovation outcomes are weak” outside of free trade zones.

An apathetic public

This wear and tear is also reflected in a marked political apathy among everyday Costa Ricans. According to Merino, three decades ago nearly every person in Costa Rica was affiliated with a political party. Today, barely a fifth of the country identifies with a party.

“It is a worrying trend,” Merino said. “Fewer and fewer people are voting, young people are participating less and now even older adults are staying away from the polls.”

In 2022, Costa Rica registered the lowest voter turnout in its recent history, with two out of five eligible voters staying home on election day.

Both Díaz and Merino agree that the Costa Rican social pact — built over more than a century — is at stake. Environmental concerns have held a central place in Costa Rica’s identity for years, much like its lack of a standing army, and the country has set ambitious sustainability goals.

But the two political scientists say that even that is changing. The idea of a “green Costa Rica” coexists today with proposals for ending a two-decade-old ban on fossil fuel exploration and exploiting natural resources such as precious metals, gas and oil.

“It’s not just a choice. If something is not done, the deterioration can continue,” said Díaz, “and so far no political party has considered this issue with the seriousness it requires.”

Election day in Costa Rica will not just determine who holds political office. It will also test the capacity of the country’s politicians to reconnect with an increasingly distant citizenry and resolve the tensions accumulating in Costa Rica’s social fabric. Will an army-less country known for its environmentalism become the next El Salvador?

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

CNN’s Djenane Villanueva reported from San José, while Max Saltman contributed from Atlanta.