Although largely seen as the outgoing heir to President Rodrigo Chaves, Costa Rica’s President-elect Laura Fernández is poised to push the country even further to the right. In the election on February 1, she gained a significant majority in the country’s 57-seat legislature and can apply pressure to impact social, economic and political reform at a rapid pace. Domestic critics worry about the underfunding of education and health services at the expense of a singular reliance on security policy and a push for “fiscal responsibility.” Aside from her policy agenda scaling back the welfare state, she also falls short on articulating social protectionfor marginalized groups.

The conservative shift in Costa Rica started as early as the country’s fiscal crisis in 2009-10. Further, a noticeable rise in crime by 2016, along with allegations and findings of embezzlement scandals as recently as 2018 and the “Chinese cement scandal,” produced more indifference toward traditional and elite political parties.

Democracy Now! reports that the new president “campaigned on favoring harsher criminal sentencing and mandatory prison labor for convicts. She’s proposed a massive new prison in Costa Rica modeled on CECOT, the so-called Terrorism Confinement Center built by Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele.”

In short, Costa Rica has provided yet another case study for analyzing right-wing populism in the Americas.

Fernández, however, won with a plurality, not a majority, and with a relatively low turnout of 50-60 percent. She ran on a “mano dura” (“iron fist”) platform to address economic anxiety. Her candidacy did not manage to attract a substantial percentage of the eligible voting population. Just over a majority of the voters selected........

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