On Wednesday afternoon the TSE finished the manual scrutiny and did not declare Oscar Arias the next president of Costa Rica, although he leads by a comfortable 1.12 per cent.

Arias has 664,545 votes (40.9%) and Solís 646,378 (30.8%), so the lead is now 18,167.  These are official figures with 100% of the 6,163 polling stations counted.

However, the TSE must resolve a total of 627 appeals of decisions taken by magistrates during the scrutiny.   The court announced today that the official results may take up to 10 days.
Local and international analysts don’t expect the appeals to affect the outcome, given that 90 per cent of the appeals already decided were rejected.  The appeals mainly concern the 712 tables that the TSE began the manual count with.  The PAC requests that these votes be rescrutinized and the TSE contends that any appeal must be based on actual anomalies or evidence.
Others concern missing election registries that were not included with the ballots.  This is the registry people sign when voting and which ensures that citizens don’t vote twice.  PAC contends that the ballots from affected stations cannot be counted, while the TSE admits an alternate declaration from officials presiding the table.

The latest election news indicates that a winner will be obvious, but not declared when the TSE finishes the manual recount today, probably around noon local time.

Last night at the 8 pm report, Oscar Arias took a commanding - for this race - lead of 10 275 votes with 95.93 per cent of the polling stations scrutinized.

TSE Chief magistrate Antonio Sobrado re-iterated that 507 appeals remain to be resolved, which could possibly affect the outcome. In addition, party representatives at the count have 3 days to file appeals, which given Monday’s and Tuesday’s results are likely to occur. Once the process is complete the TSE will officially announce a winner.