Costa Ricans have elected conservative populist Laura Fernández as their next president, according to preliminary results, making her the latest right-leaning leader to win office in Latin America.

With results from 96.8% of polling places counted, Fernández of the Sovereign People’s Party won 48.3% of the vote, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal reported.

Her closest challenger, economist Álvaro Ramos of the National Liberation Party, trailed with 33.4%, the Associated Press reported. 

Ramos conceded the race on election night, with Fernández, 39, to begin her four-year term in May.

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A former government minister, Fernández is the chosen successor of outgoing President Rodrigo Chaves, who is constitutionally prohibited from seeking re-election.

She campaigned on continuing Chaves’ populist agenda, which reshaped Costa Rican politics by arguing against traditional parties and promising tougher action on crime.

Fernández served as minister of national planning and later as minister of the presidency, giving her a central role in Chaves’ administration.

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Crime had dominated the campaign in Costa Rica amid sharp rises in homicides, gang activity and drug trafficking by cartels.

The murder rate had increased by 50% over the last six years, according to reports.

Fernández pledged a hard-line security strategy, including increased cooperation with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and tougher measures against organized crime.

She has also floated controversial proposals inspired by El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele.

This included construction of a special prison for gang leaders, the Associated Press reported.

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"My hand won’t shake when it comes to making the decisions we need to restore peace in Costa Rican homes," Fernández said during the campaign.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio congratulated Fernández in a statement Monday.

"Under her leadership, we are confident Costa Rica will continue to advance shared priorities to include combating narco-trafficking, ending illegal immigration to the United States, promoting cybersecurity and secure telecommunications, and strengthening economic ties," Rubio said.

"I hope that we can immediately lower the flags of whichever political party and start working only in favor of the Costa Rican flag," Fernández said after the result. 

"I believe the Costa Rican people expect nothing less of us," she added.

Venezuela's acting President Delcy Rodriguez signed a law overhauling the nation's oil sector, opening it to privatization. The move reverses a core policy of the socialist movement that has ruled the country for more than two decades.

Rodriguez's policy shift, aimed at luring the foreign investors needed to rework the industry, comes less than one month after the U.S. captured former Venezuelan dictatorial leader Nicolás Maduro. The acting president, who served as Maduro's vice president prior to his capture, was facing pressure from the Trump administration, which was eyeing Venezuela's oil industry after imposing sanctions.

On Jan. 10, Trump hosted nearly two dozen top oil and gas executives at the White House. He said American energy companies will invest $100 billion to rebuild Venezuela’s "rotting" oil infrastructure and push production to record levels.

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That same day, Trump signed an executive order titled "Safeguarding Venezuelan Oil Revenue for the Good of the American and Venezuelan People," blocking U.S. courts from seizing Venezuelan oil revenues held in American Treasury accounts.

"We’re talking about the future. We are talking about the country that we are going to give to our children," Rodríguez said of the reform, according to The Associated Press.

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The legislation ends the state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela SA’s (PDVSA) monopoly over the production and sale of oil, as well as pricing, and allows private companies to take control, the AP reported. 

The new law states that a private company "will assume full management of the activities at its own expense, account, and risk, after demonstrating its financial and technical capacity through a business plan approved by" Venezuela's Oil Ministry, according to the AP. However, the outlet added that the law leaves control of hydrocarbon reserves operated by private companies with the government.

The law also allows for independent arbitration of disputes, ending the requirement that they be settled in Venezuelan courts controlled by the ruling party, according to the AP. Additionally, it modifies extraction taxes, setting a royalty cap rate of 30%, the AP reported.

President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with Rodriguez on Thursday, the AP reported. The call came just one day after the secretary explained to senators how the administration was planning to handle the sale of tens of millions of barrels of oil from Venezuela, the AP added. The outlet noted that Venezuela has the largest reserves of crude oil in the world.

"What we hope to do is transition to a mechanism that allows that to be sold in a normal way, a normal oil industry, not one dominated by cronies, not one dominated by graft and corruption," Rubio said at a Senate hearing on Wednesday.

The secretary said that the U.S. would retain control of the oil revenue and that Venezuela would submit monthly budget outlining what they need funded. Subsequently, the funds will be moved into an account over which the U.S. will have oversight. He explained that the money would not be in the hands of the U.S., but Washington would control its disbursement to ensure it benefits the Venezuelan people.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The Federal Aviation Administration warned pilots of U.S. airlines about flying over the eastern Pacific Ocean near Mexico, Central America and parts of South America, citing possible "military activities" and satellite navigation interference. 

The warning was issued Friday in a series of Notices to Airmen (NOTAMs) distributed by the FAA, which said, "Potential risks exist for aircraft at all altitudes, including during overflight and the arrival and departure phases of flight." 

"The FAA issued flight advisory Notices to Airmen (NOTAMs) for specified areas of Mexico, Central American, Panama, Bogata, Guayaquil, and Mazatlán Oceanic Flight Regions, and in airspace within the eastern Pacific Ocean," the agency also told USA Today. 

It’s unclear what prompted the advisories, which tell aircraft operators to "exercise caution." Fox News Digital has reached out to the FAA for comment.

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The notices come after months of U.S. military strikes against suspected drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific. 

In November, the FAA had warned all pilots to exercise caution when flying in the airspace over Venezuela "due to the worsening security situation and heightened military activity." 

In December, a JetBlue flight from the Caribbean nation of Curaçao halted its ascent to avoid colliding with a U.S. Air Force refueling tanker.

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Earlier this month, the Trump administration carried out a military operation capturing Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. 

President Donald Trump also recently told Fox News that the U.S. will expand operations against drug cartels.  

"We've knocked out 97% of the drugs coming in by water, and we are going to start now hitting land," Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity in early January. "The cartels are running Mexico, it’s very sad to watch and see what’s happened to that country."

The latest FAA notices will be in effect for 60 days. 

Fox News Digital’s Nora Moriarty and The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Latin America’s most powerful guerrilla groups are being urged to set aside years of bloody infighting and unite against President Donald Trump, according to reports.

The calls intensified in the wake of the arrest of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, which has fueled fears among groups of a looming US-backed military intervention.

The recent call came from Colombia’s most wanted insurgent leader, Nestor Gregorio Vera, or "Ivan Mordisco," who released a video appeal to rival rebel factions, even despite years of brutal infighting, according to Reuters.

After decades of waging a bloody conflict over territory, drug routes and illegal economies, Vera said the time had come to put differences aside.

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"The shadow of the interventionist eagle looms over everyone equally. We urge you to put aside these differences," Vera said in the video, in which he appeared in camouflage flanked by two heavily armed fighters, Reuters said.

"Destiny is calling us to unite. We are not scattered forces, we are heirs to the same cause. Let us weave unity through action and forge the great insurgent bloc that will push back the enemies of the greater homeland," he added.

Among the groups singled out was the left-wing National Liberation Army (ELN), Colombia’s largest and most powerful guerrilla organization, which controls vast stretches of the 1,400-mile border between Colombia and Venezuela.

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"The war between Mordisco’s Farc dissidents and the ELN has been very, very bloody with a huge humanitarian impact," Jorge Mantilla, a security analyst and expert on Colombian guerrilla groups, told The Telegraph.

"So it calls my attention that, despite that, Mordisco is still saying, ‘stop this, let’s unite against our enemy, which is the U.S. and its intervention.’ So the cards are on the table."

Colombian President Gustavo Petro, also a former guerrilla fighter, had seized on the threat of a united insurgent front to call for a concerted effort to "remove" drug-trafficking guerrillas.

He said he had invited Venezuela’s new leader, Delcy Rodriguez, to cooperate in rooting out the armed groups.

But reports of a potential joint military operation involving the U.S., Colombia and Venezuela also raised the prospect that the ELN could finally be dismantled after more than 60 years of insurgency.

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As previously reported by Fox News Digital, guerrillas now operate along Venezuela’s 2,219-kilometer border with Colombia and control illegal mining near the Orinoco oil belt.

ELN has operated in Venezuela as a paramilitary force.

The group is believed to have around 6,000 fighters and controls key cocaine-producing regions, illegal mining operations and smuggling routes, per reports.

Following Maduro’s capture, the ELN vowed to fight to its "last drop of blood" against what it called the US empire.

"Today, the main goal of the ELN is not the takeover of power in Colombia or to rebuild a Colombian state, but more so to defend the Bolivarian Revolution, because they consider themselves a continental guerrilla [group] because their ideological inspiration is Latin Americanist, so they feel the struggle of Venezuela is their struggle," Mantilla told the Telegraph.

"I think ELN is, right now, in a very vulnerable position," Angelika Rettberg, political science professor at the University of the Andes in Colombia told the outlet.

"I also don’t think that even if they are able to build this unified organization, that would make them less likely to be hit by an eventual US attack," Rettberg said.