Opposition Candidate Wins Costa Rican Presidency : Elections: Hero’s son leads in early returns, overcoming scandal in a bitter campaign.

Ending the most bitter election in modern Costa Rican history, voters Sunday chose as their next president the 39-year-old son of a national hero who had to overcome old murder allegations to stay in the race.

Opposition candidate Jose Maria Figueres appeared well on his way to defeating businessman Miguel Angel Rodriguez of the ruling Social Christian Unity Party, early returns showed. Rodriguez conceded Sunday night, pledging to heal the deep wounds opened by the acrimonious campaign.

The Supreme Electoral Tribunal released partial results that gave Figueres, trained at both West Point and Harvard, a slim victory margin of 2 to 3 percentage points.

“This triumph of the Costa Rican family is a triumph of truth over lies . . . of the teamwork of thousands over arrogance,” Figueres told a jubilant crowd of supporters in downtown San Jose. “I hope we never again live through such a tumultuous campaign.”

Voting in this army-less traditional democracy was peaceful and festive. Costa Ricans loaded into their cars and filled the streets of San Jose and other cities, honking horns and waving banners with their party colors.

The campaign, however, was a different matter. Scandals eclipsed issues, and the negative tone raised questions about just how democratic Costa Rica’s famous democracy is. It left many Costa Ricans wondering whether their country’s tradition of polite politics has been shattered forever.

Figueres, of the National Liberation Party, had to fight accusations that he participated in the 1973 death-squad murder of a two-bit drug dealer, an allegation he denies. Rodriguez was dogged by a 1982 U.S. indictment on charges he exported tainted meat to the United States; the charges were dropped, but his firm was fined.

Both campaigns made the most of these scandals, using the allegations in advertisements and stump speeches. Rodriguez warned that Figueres was a danger to the country, while Figueres called Rodriguez a liar with a “sick mind.”

Costa Rica has relied on a political system of consensus and compromise to remain Central America’s most stable country, and the exchange of insults during the campaign will make it difficult for opposing parties to work together in the future, analysts here said.

“If one candidate is calling his opponent a murderer, and the other is calling his opponent a swindler and a cattle thief, then how do you get beyond that?” asked a senior Costa Rican government official.

Voters Sunday also chose all 57 members of the National Assembly and dozens of city councils.

Throughout the campaign, Figueres capitalized on the name of his father, Jose (Don Pepe) Figueres, who led and won Costa Rica’s 1948 civil war and is credited with founding the modern state.

The elder Figueres abolished the army, instituted broad health and education reforms and built a social safety net that has enabled Costa Rica to avoid the war and abject poverty suffered by its Central American neighbors.

While Figueres pledged to “modernize” the programs of his father, Rodriguez, a 54-year-old economist trained at UC Berkeley, said he would accelerate the economic reforms of outgoing President Rafael Calderon, lowering tariffs to promote trade and encouraging privatization of select government enterprises.

Figueres’ National Liberation Party has dominated Costa Rican politics since the civil war. Costa Rica did not officially have a two-party system until 1984, when Calderon’s Social Christian Unity Party was registered as an “institutional party,” meaning it would automatically appear on ballots every election along with the National Liberation Party.

The domination of Costa Rican politics by two moderate parties has left little room for third parties and little room for serious dissent beyond a narrowly defined middle road, analysts here say.

“The bi-party system has meant that democracy here has always been . . . an exercise in consensus--an exercise in ‘you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours,’ ” political analyst Luis Guillermo Solis said. “There are two forces that define all the rules of the game. That does not create a lively democracy. It may not destroy democracy, but it weakens it.”