Vote Counting Continues, Candidates React 

Supreme Elections Tribunal (TSE) officials yesterday continued the required recount of all 1.5 million votes cast in Sunday's presidential election and finished counting ballots from the 712 polling places which were not included in Monday afternoon's preliminary counts received electronically from polling places after Sunday's presidential election.

PLN officials did everything short of declare victory yesterday when they announced that Arias has a lead of approximately 15,000 votes. However, that number had not been confirmed, and TSE does not add up votes released each day, but instead releases them in chart form.

The party arrived at this number by adding the 3,250-vote lead Arias had in the preliminary count, which lacked results from 11.6% of the polling stations, to the results from that 11.6% that came from a hand count.

Over the past three days, in what Rodrigo Arias, Liberation campaign manager and brother of candidate Arias, acknowledged was a completely different process, the 11.6%, or 712 polling stations, were counted by hand by the Supreme Elections Tribunal. In this process, Arias ended up with a lead of 12,376, which added to the 3,250, amounts to 15,626, according to Liberation officials.

However, Rodrigo and other Liberation officials were very clear that they were not declaring victory. Instead they pragmatically said they were patiently awaiting the TSE's declaration at the end of the hand count, which could take 30 days.

Rodrigo Arias said they are particularly concerned about Costa Rica in the eyes of the world.

“I am very clear as to who won this election. It is nearly impossible to reverse such a difference,” said Kevin Casas, Vice-Presidential candidate National Liberation Party. “On the other hand we are not going to do something stupid, we are going to wait patiently until the TSE officially declares the results. In that sense, we aren't going to celebrate, or do anything to contradict the principle that whatever the TSE says, we will accept.”

Casas says he hopes Solís will concede.

“I am clearly convinced that in two or three days, as soon as he finds out that the manual recount just won't change the final result, it will dawn on him that it is probably good for the country that he concedes,” he said. 

Meanwhile Solís said he respects TSE's requests to refrain from declaring themselves victors and focused on strategizing for his party.

He held a meeting in his home with representatives from the social sector where he said he reaffirmed commitments made during the campaign and discussed his party's proposals, which he said are “just as important” whether or not he won the presidency.

He also warned that countries that don't carry on dialogue with the social sector will get taken down.

He said he would continue to wait for the TSE's official election results.

“I deeply respect the (country's) institutionalism, and lament if others don't respect it,” said Solís.

He also said that the TSE had explicitly asked candidates to refrain from making statements of victory or accepting defeat. “And we are not going to express either victory or any other sentiment and we are going to respect what the tribunal requested with all the patience and all the respect for the the constitution and the laws of this country,” he added.

Asked if he could beat Arias, he said “Anything is possible,” and pointed out “There has always been a big difference in one direction or the other, between the counts from the telegrams, to call them that, and the results from the official count. Now, the difference from the count to where it left off, with 88% of the tables, was 0.22. That is where it is now. 0.22. Now they have started another count that is going in a direction. We are going to see how it ends.”

-Tico Times Staff