Costa Rica remains a conservative country. This is the main finding of the most recent Public Opinion Survey, conducted by the University of Costa Rica (UCR).
Most Costa Ricans oppose the recreational use of marijuana, abortion in case of rape, the secular state and the recognition of same-sex couples. Most of these issues respond to the Human Rights agenda.
The strongest opposition is against the recreational use of marijuana, as 78.6% of the 700 respondents indicated they disagree with it, while only 19.3% support it.
Moreover, 59.4% of Costa Ricans oppose the idea of abortion in case of rape, 59.2% refuse to recognize same-sex couples, 60.3% don’t believe in a secular state and 41.5% disagrees with in vitro fertilization.
The researchers attribute these results to the influence of the Catholic Church in Costa Rica.
The Catholic religion continues to have a major impact on the political culture because it is one of the few Catholic confessional states that remain in Latin America,”
reads the document, released on January 18th.
Of those interviewed, 71.8% said they were Catholic, followed by Evangelicals and Pentecostals (12.3%). Only 10.4% said they do not profess any religion. And people not only claim to be Catholic, but 70.4% of them said that religion is “very important”.
The study also revealed that Costa Ricans are not happy with the current government, as more than 50% said that the management was “poor” or “very poor”
The survey was conducted to 774 Costa Ricans via telephone between October 31th and November 23rd, 2016.