Preliminary, partial results put Costa Rican president's handpicked successor ahead

CARTAGO, Costa Rica (AP) — Preliminary and partial results put the Costa Rican president’s handpicked successor well ahead in a crowded field after Sunday's election.

The Supreme Electoral Tribunal reported that with votes from 53% of polling places tallied, conservative populist Laura Fernández of the Sovereign People's Party had 50.8% of the vote. Her closest challenger was economist Álvaro Ramos of the National Liberation Party with 31.6%.

At least 40% of the total vote is required to win the presidential election in the first round. Otherwise, the top two candidates will go to a runoff on April 5.

Fernández campaigned on continuing the policies of term-limited President Rodrigo Chaves.

The historically peaceful Central American nation’s crime surge in recent years could be a deciding factor for many voters. Some fault Chaves' presidency for failing to bring those rates down, but many see his confrontational style as the best chance for Costa Rica to tame the violence.

Fernández was previously Chaves’ minister of national planning and economic policy and, more recently, his minister of the presidency.

She is Chaves' favored successor and was considered the frontrunner headed into Sunday's election.

Costa Ricans also voted for the 57-seat National Assembly. Chaves’ party is expected to make gains, but perhaps not achieve the supermajority he and Fernández have called for, which would allow their party to choose Supreme Court magistrates, for example.

Twenty contenders were seeking the presidency, but no candidate other than Fernández and Ramos reached 5% in the preliminary and partial results.

Some 3.7 million Costa Ricans are eligible to vote. They began casting their ballots at 6 a.m. Sunday and voting continued until 6 p.m.

Ronald Loaiza, an electrical engineer, was one of the first to vote amid rain and cold early Sunday at a school in Cartago, about 25 kilometers (15 miles) east of San Jose. He came early so that he could accompany his father to vote later in another town.

“I hope that it’s a democratic celebration, that the people come out to vote,” he said. “It’s very important that we exercise the right that this country gives us, that we’re conscious of our democracy.”

Four years ago, Chaves ran an outsider campaign that carried him to victory over the country's traditional parties, despite the fact that he had briefly served as economy minister in a previous administration. His framing of traditional parties as corrupt and self-interested resonated in a country with high unemployment and a soaring budget deficit.