Five days after the municipal elections on February 7th, the canton of Santa Cruz has a new mayor, and the mayor is a woman: National Liberation Party (PLN- Partido Liberacion Nacional) member Maria Rosa Lopez.
On Friday, February 12th, the Supreme Electoral Court (TSE- Tribunal Supremo de Elecciones) counted the ballots for the province of Guanacaste and it turned out that Maria Rosa Lopez from PLN triumphed by a narrow margin over Jorge Alfaro from the National Integration Party (PIN- Partido Integracion Nacional).
According to the final count, Lopez had received 4169 votes, which allowed her to claim victory and be proclaimed as the new mayor of Santa Cruz, 2016-2020 period.
“I feel very happy and grateful to the people of Santa Cruz for the trust they have placed in me. Our work paid off going to the communities to present ourselves to the people. This allowed me to get to know the needs of the canton. I promise them that my priorities are going to be to work on the road network, the construction of the new municipal building and of course to the internal reorganization of the municipality,” Lopez said.
One of the challenges to be faced, according to Lopez, is the gender discrimination that exists.
“Many times, we women have to pay a high price for getting into fields that are considered to be not for us. Many women prefer not to pass this test, which is like a terrible ordeal— they start attacking us, launching false accusations, but we should take the risk to contribute to the progress of the cantons,” Lopez said.
Lopez is the second woman to take on the role of mayor in the province of Guanacaste, as Anabelle Matarrita was elected by the canton of Abangares.
Do you want to know the opinions of the new mayor of your canton? We invite you to play with our app and find the answers here.
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