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Arias Costa Rica wins presidential election: exit polls Former president leads in Costa Rican elections

    

Former Costa Rican President and presidential candidate, Oscar Arias, raises his arm after the first results of a presidential election were announced at Corobici hotel in San Jose, February 6, 2006. (Xinhua/Reuters)

SAN JOSE, Feb. 6 (Xinhuanet) -- Oscar Arias, presidential candidate for the National Liberation Party (PLC) in Costa Rica, has a 0.22 percentage point margin over his rival Otton Solis of the Citizens Action Party (PAC), with 88.45 percent of Sunday's vote counted, the country's Supreme Election Tribunal(TSE) said on Monday.

    Arias, a former president and 1987's Nobel Peace Prize-winner, has 40.51 percent of the vote, while Solis has 40.29 percent, a difference of just over 3,200 votes. Otto Guevara, from the right wing Libertarian Movement (LM), has 8.4 percent while Ricardo Toledo of the ruling United Christian Socialist Party has only 3.43 percent.

    Because of the tight margin, the TSE will begin a manual recount of the vote, and will publish its results in two weeks, TSE president Oscar Fonseca said.

    "The margin is growing ever narrower, ever tighter and so each vote has to be re-checked, even though we know the people are keento know who will be the next president, even if it is by only one vote," Fonseca said.

    He added that Costa Rica had never seen an election this tight and it had been a completely unexpected turn of events.

    Until Sunday's vote, the tightest vote in Costa Rica was in 1966 when Jose Joaquin Trejos from the National Unification Party won the election with 4,220 votes, a 0.95 percent margin over the LM's Daniel Oduber. The difference then was equivalent to one vote per ballot box. Enditem