Right-winger wins big in Costa Rican poll

SAN JOSE

Laura Fernandez, the right-wing political scientist elected president of Costa Rica, is the latest Latin American politician to achieve victory by emulating the self-described "world's coolest dictator," Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele.

Fernandez, 39, is the political heir of outgoing conservative President Rodrigo Chaves, under whom she served as planning minister and chief of staff.

She is the second woman to be elected president, after Laura Chinchilla who governed from 2010 to 2014.

But it is to Bukele she looks for inspiration on how to curb rising violence in a country long seen as an oasis of stability in Central America.

Costa Rica, which has Caribbean and Pacific coastlines, has gone from mere transit point to logistics hub for Colombian and Mexican drug cartels.

Drug trafficking has spilt over into local communities, fuelling turf wars that have caused the murder rate to jump 50 percent in the past six years.

Fernandez has promised to complete construction of a mega-prison for dangerous offenders modeled on Bukele's brutal Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) and to place crime hotspots under a Salvadoran-style state of emergency.

"I will implement tough measures that allow us to take criminals off the streets and put them where they belong — in jail," the candidate of the Sovereign People's Party said on the campaign trial.

Rights groups warn against replicating Bukele's model, which has shown spectacular results on crime while sacrificing the rights of thousands of people locked up without charge.

They see Fernandez as a mere vehicle for Chaves' populist agenda and fear that her role will primarily be to keep the seat warm for him until he can make a comeback.

Members of the ruling party have already said they will seek to change the constitution so Chaves does not have to wait eight years before running for re-election.

Fernandez has not ruled out including Chaves in her cabinet.

'Rude and populist'

She has adopted his confrontational approach, portraying the judiciary as soft on crime and bashing political elites.

"Her tone is rude and populist, a poor imitation of the president," Chinchilla accused.

Born in Puntarenas, a Pacific port city plagued by drug trafficking, Fernandez was raised by a farmer father and teacher mother.

She says she was raised among cows and geese, and that during school holidays she helped out at a family hardware store in the capital San Jose, packing nails.

The twice-married mother of a three-year-old girl, she considers herself "economically liberal and socially conservative."

"If you're in favor of abortion, euthanasia, and believe that family isn't important, this isn't the place for you," she stated.

On the eve of the elections, local media reported that she had made an alleged pact with ultraconservative evangelical Costa Ricans to secure their support in exchange for positions in her government.