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.”