Image Credit: Semanario Universidad

The second round of the presidential elections in Costa Rica will take place April 1st and with less than a month to go the latest poll has the two candidates going head to head with a very slight advantage for Carlos Alvarado.

The survey carried out by the Center for Political Studies and Investigation of the University of Costa Rica (CIEP-UCR) has Carlos Alvarado from the Citizens Action Party (PAC) with a 41% of the support and Fabricio Alvarado from the National Restoration Party (PRN) with 39%; those who have not decided who they will vote for represent 20%.

The margin error for the poll is of 3.1 points up or down, which means the results of the poll correspond to a “statistical tie” since the candidate of PAC could go down as much as 38% while his opponent from PRN could move up to 42%.

When these results are compared to the ones obtained by CIEP-UCR three weeks back, it seems that Carlos Alvarado remains stuck while Fabricio has lost some of the support, going down from a previous 45%.

In fact, another poll released by Opol Consultores at the end of February showed Fabricio with a clear advantage over Carlos.

According to the CIEP-UCR poll, Fabricio Alvarado has a bigger support of women between the ages of 35-55, inhabitants of coastal provinces, religious groups and a sector of the population with less formal education; while Carlos Alvarado is receiving the support mainly of men, young adults and adults over 55, people with university studies and living in the Central Valley and those who has less active participation in religious groups.

The study also showed that there hasn’t been a massive support of followers of other political parties towards either of the candidates, however, there is more inclination of voters of other parties towards the officialism (PAC) while PRN is getting more support from those that didn’t vote in February 4th.

The survey also inquired about the religious preference of the respondents: 52% were Catholics, 22% Evangelicals and 17% said they don’t have a particular religion.