Costa Rica’s government said Tuesday it had uncovered an alleged plot to assassinate President Rodrigo Chaves ahead of national elections, where his right-wing party is expected to secure victory.
Jorge Torres, head of the Central American country's Directorate of Intelligence and National Security, cited a "confidential source" as informing the agency that a hitman had been paid to attack Chaves.
The purported plot comes two weeks before the country holds presidential and parliamentary elections.
Chaves, who is barred by the constitution from seeking a second consecutive term, has backed one of his former ministers, Laura Fernandez, to succeed him.
Opposition groups have warned against what they see as possible interference in the election from the iron-fisted president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele.
Chaves has invited Bukele to Costa Rica on Wednesday to lay the founding stone of a new mega-prison modelled on El Salvador's brutal Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).
Thousands of young men are being held without charge in CECOT, as part of Bukele's war on gang violence.
In September, the country's Congress fell short of the supermajority required to strip Chaves of immunity in order to prosecute him on corruption charges. Chaves’ opposition needed a 38-vote supermajority, but only managed 34 votes in favor of lifting the president’s immunity. Twenty-one lawmakers voted against the effort and two more were absent. It was the first time such a vote had occurred about a sitting president in Costa Rica’s history.
Prosecutors alleged that Chaves pressured a video producer who had been awarded a contract by the Central American Bank for Economic Integration to give a portion of that money to a former campaign adviser.
Chaves has denied any wrongdoing and says he is the victim of a politically motivated prosecution.
