Ruling-party candidate backed as snub to foes of same-sex marriage

Costa Rica’s rulingparty candidate, Carlos Alvarado Quesada, appeared on track for a landslide victory over a socially conservative religious singer who ran on his opposition to same-sex marriage, according to near-complete election results Monday.

With about 95 percent of the votes counted, Alvarado, 38, a novelist and musician who had served in cabinet positions for the current president, Luis Guillermo Solís, had captured 60.8 percent in Sunday’s voting, according to the country’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal.

His opponent, Fabricio Alvarado Muñoz, a TV journalist, pastor and singer who had been riding momentum based on his opposition to same-sex marriage and abortion and his stance on other social issues, had received 39.2 percent of the vote.

The presidential election had become consumed by social issues in recent weeks.

This year, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled that member countries should allow same-sex marriage. This decision prompted upheaval in Costa Rica’s race and improved the chances of Fabricio Alvarado, a legislator from a party supported by religious conservatives.

The inter-American court’s ruling “was really the equivalent of dropping an atomic bomb on the race,” said Kevin Casas-Zamora, a senior fellow at the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington and former vice president of Costa Rica. “The whole race was transformed literally overnight.