Costa Rican presidential finalists come out of nowhere

Fabricio Alvarado and Carlos Alvarado will advance to a second round runoff following yesterday's elections in Costa Rica. Since no candidate captured over 40 percent of the vote, a runoff is scheduled for April 1. 

With 89 percent of the polling stations reporting their results, Fabricio Alvarado of the National Restoration Party leads among voter preferences with 24.8 percent. The campaign for the "evangelical Christian singer" took off after he argued against changing the country's marriage laws in the wake of a ruling by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in favor of gay marriage. 

Representing the ruling party, Carlos Alvarado Quesada is in second with 21.8 percent of the vote. Carlos Alvarado of the Citizen Action Party (PAC) has served as the minister of human development and labor in the Solís government.

In a CIEP-UCR survey from December, Fabricio Alvarado finished sixth and Carlos Alvarado fifth.