Luis Guillermo Solis, presidential candidate of the Citizens’ Action Party (PAC), smiles during a walk in San Jose April 4, 2014. REUTERS/JUAN CARLOS ULATE

Raxa Collective is at home in India, which begins the world’s largest democratic elections this week, and in Costa Rica which just concluded its own national elections. We cannot point to many similarities between India and Costa Rica given the differences in size, population, history and just about every other dimension you can think of. But since the late 1940s both have been outlier democracies in their own ways. And maybe that is part of the reason we feel at home in both countries.

We congratulate Mr. Solis and all Costa Ricans on their recent election, and in India, as they say, may the best candidate win. Thanks to Reuters for this update on the election run-off in Costa Rica, and we will highlight as appropriate India’s election results:

A center-left academic who has never held elected office easily won Costa Rica’s presidential election on Sunday, ousting the graft-stained ruling party from power after its candidate quit campaigning a month ago.

Former diplomat Luis Guillermo Solis, of the Citizen Action Party (PAC), won with around 78 percent of votes by tapping in to public anger at rising inequality and government corruption scandals.

His win dislodges a two-party dynasty that has governed the coffee-producing country for decades. It is also another victory for Latin America’s center-left parties, which have steadily gained ground across the region in recent years.

“More than 1 million Costa Ricans have said yes to change,” Solis told thousands of cheering supporters waving red-and-yellow party flags on Sunday night. “We need to shift away from … a violence expressed in poverty, in inequality and in the utterly perverse form of corruption.”

Solis was a relative unknown just a few months ago but he defied pollsters’ predictions by coming in ahead of his rivals in a first round of voting in February, and then took a huge lead in opinion polls ahead of the run-off.

In a bizarre twist, his rival Johnny Araya of the ruling National Liberation Party (PLN) announced last month he was halting his campaign as polls showed him with little or no chance of catching Solis.

Araya remained on the ballot as required by the constitution and his party continued to campaign, but a heavy defeat looked inevitable.

Solis had 77.88 percent of the vote with returns in from 94 percent of polling booths, Costa Rica’s election tribunal said. Araya had just 22.12 percent of the vote, and quickly conceded defeat.

A published author well versed in international relations and global trade, Solis ran on a promise to fight Costa Rica’s stubborn poverty rate and to stamp out corruption, an issue that has dogged incumbent President Laura Chinchilla’s administration and which struck a chord with voters…

Read the whole story here.