Costa Rica’s president-elect calls victory a ‘revolution’

By JAVIER CÓRDOBA
Associated Press

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (AP) — Costa Rican president-elect Rodrigo Chaves says his runoff victory was a “revolution” by marginalized communities against the country’s elites. Chaves is a conservative former World Bank economist and was briefly finance minister in the outgoing administration of President Carlos Alvarado. He cast himself as the outsider in the race since he was representing the relatively new Social Democratic Progress Party, which has never held public office at any level in Costa Rica. It was also a position he could probably only have taken in Sunday’s presidential contest against the man embodying Costa Rica’s establishment — José María Figueres, a former president and son of a three-time president.