Costa Ricans' Favorite Presidential Candidate: Undecided.
| Autor | Rodriguez, George |
Most Costa Rican voters say they plan to cast their ballot in the presidential elections two months from now, but about half of them say they are still wavering on which of the candidates to support.
This uncertainty, coupled with a shortage of appealing candidates, is resulting in a cold electoral environment. Television campaign spots and gigantic--but not numerous--highway and street billboards are about the only signs of the ongoing campaign.
According to the latest monthly poll by the Centro de Investigacion y Estudios Pohticos (CIEP) a political research center at the Universidad de Costa Rica, about 66% of voters plan to participate in the elections, but around 37% of them have not decided whom to back for president, or have been changing their minds. The undecided voters are generally prone to vary their support from one candidate to another as the election campaign process develops, according CIEP.
The study also revealed that the elections are not a conversation topic for most Costa Ricans. In reporting its survey, CIEP pointed out that the study "reflects a cold political election atmosphere, since some 74.2% of the people do not talk about the campaign at home, and the majority have little interest and enthusiasm in this process."
Similar figures were revealed in another November survey, in this case by the Instituto de Estudios Sociales en Poblacion (IDESPO), a population research center at the Universidad Nacional (UNA).
This study placed those who said there was a "very high" possibility that they would vote at 56%, followed by those with a "high" possibility at 13.8%, and those with an "intermediate" chance at 13.7%. Only 9.3% said they would not vote.
A reluctance to commit
According to Costa Rican political analyst Gustavo Araya, this sector "has a very characteristic feature, and it is that ... they're people who are increasingly defining themselves toward the end of the campaign," even on election day itself.
Voters who say they are uninterested or undecided in the electoral process are not necessarily people upset or disappointed about politics, Araya said.
"It's people who, definitely, have no party loyalties any longer, who are focusing more on the candidate than on the program offer, who have no ideological attachments, and who, in general, are actually waiting for candidates to define themselves," he said. But the latter is not happening, because "the candidates have fallen into a kind of campaign where concrete...
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