Costa Ricans Reject Presidential Candidate Who Opposes Same-Sex Marriage
- By
- Carlos Santoscoy
- | April 02, 2018
Costa Rican voters on Sunday rejected a presidential candidate who rose to political prominence by campaigning against marriage rights for gay and lesbian couples.
According to The Washington Post, Carlos Alvarado of the ruling Citizen Action Party received 60.8 percent of the vote, while his opponent, Christian evangelical pastor Fabricio Alvarado of the National Restoration Party, received 39.2 percent. The men are not related.
Fabricio Alvarado's poll numbers climbed after he said that he would not support an Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) ruling calling for marriage equality. As a signatory country, Costa Rica is bound by the ruling.
Carlos Alvarado said that he would respect the ruling.
The men faced off in Sunday's runoff after no candidate reached the 40 percent threshold to win the presidency in February's election. Polls showed the men neck-and-neck going into the runoff.
In conceding defeat, Fabricio Alvarado told his supporters that he was not sad, “because we made history, because our message touched the country's deepest nerves.”