Costa Rica, February 8, 2010: Costa Ricans have elected their first woman president as the ruling party candidate won in a landslide after campaigning to continue free market policies in Central America’s most stable nation.

With most of the votes from Sunday’s election counted, Laura Chinchilla held a 22-point lead over her closest rival. Her 47 percent share of the vote was well beyond the 40 percent needed to avoid a run-off.

The 50-year-old protege of the current president, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Oscar Arias, promised to pursue the same economic policies that recently brought the country into a trade pact with the U.S. and opened commerce with China.

As a female president, she would follow an increasingly common trend in many Latin American countries: Nicaragua, Panama, Chile and Argentina have all elected women as presidents.

Alfredo Fernandez, 77, said he has always voted for the National Liberation Party, but this time his ballot was special.

“It is an honor to be able to have a woman president,” he said.

Heizel Arias, a 24-year-old single mother voted at a prison where she is serving an eight-year drug smuggling sentence.

“I voted for Laura Chinchilla because she has promised to fight for women,” Arias said. “She was the only one who visited us and told us her plans and I believe in her.”

(Agencies)