Costa Ricans elected ruling party candidate Laura Fernández in a first round landslide as her promise of a draconian crackdown on criminals appealed to voters in a nation roiled by soaring drug violence.

With 94% of ballots tallied, Fernández led with 48% of the vote, enough to avoid a runoff, and trouncing 19 other candidates. Álvaro Ramos, her nearest rival, had 33%, and conceded.

She’ll be sworn in for her four-year term leading the Central American nation on May 8. Her party won a simple majority 31 seats in the 57-member congress, with Ramos’s party winning 17, according to La Nacion.

“My future government will only have one purpose: to strengthen the rule of law,” she said in her victory speech.

Fernández, 39, who served as President Rodrigo Chaves’s chief-of-staff, has pledged longer sentences for gangsters and wants to suspend constitutional rights in high crime neighborhoods to make it easier for police to conduct searches and arrests. She also promised a judicial reform and term limits on judges, who she says are soft on criminals.

Costa Rica’s location and port make it appealing to cocaine traffickers, who can hide their product in shipments of fruit destined for the U.S. and Europe. The number of murders in the nation of five million surged to the highest ever in 2023 and has remained near that peak as rival gangs fought for territory, while the government seized a near-record 51 tons of cocaine last year.

“I will apply tough measures that allow us to take these criminals out of circulation and put them where they belong, in jail,” Fernández said during the campaign.

Leaders from the key tourism sector, which employs hundreds of thousands of Costa Ricans, have warned that rising crime threatens the country’s reputation as one of the safest destinations in Latin America. Foreign tourist visits remain below their pre-pandemic peak. Voters said crime was their top concern.

Fernández has called for closer economic ties with the U.S., says she opposes all new taxes and wants to “cut the fat” off the state. She’s also proposed selling two state-owned banks.

Morgan Stanley strategists moved to a “like” stance on Costa Rica’s sovereign debt, from neutral, seeing at least one upgrade by all three rating firms and global bond issuance under the Fernández administration.

Chaves was not eligible for re-election, but Fernández has floated the idea of naming him her chief-of-staff.

Fernández also promised greater cooperation with the DEA and FBI to crack down on drug trafficking. Last year, she met Secretary of State Marco Rubio to discuss how to curb the flow of drugs to the U.S.

The economy will expand 3.6% this year, making it among the top performers in the Americas, according to analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

Annual inflation is negative, and the unemployment rate is near its the lowest levels since 2007. The country’s currency rallied to a 20-year high in January.

Chaves, a former World Bank economist, completed a lending program with the International Monetary Fund, narrowed the country’s fiscal deficit and lowered public debt levels as a proportion of GDP.

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