Laura Chinchilla - Costa Rica
People Profile: Laura Chinchilla Miranda, Costa Rica
Who is she? On 7 June Laura Chinchilla won the ruling Partido Liberación Nacional (PLN)'s primary election to become its candidate for the 2010 presidential election.
Why watch her? She is the first candidate from a major traditional party to run for the presidency in Costa Rica and is well positioned to win, potentially becoming the country's first female head of state.
Born: 28 March 1959, Costa Rica
Education:
1981: BA in Political Science, University of Costa Rica, San José.
1989: MA in Public Policy, Georgetown University, Washington DC, USA.
Public life: Chinchilla has built a career around her interest in judicial and public security reform. Since 1990 she has worked as an academic and a consultant specialising in judicial reform and public security reform (particularly police reform), for various international organisations in Latin America and Africa, including USAID, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).
She is involved in several international and regional initiatives to promote judicial reform, reform in citizen security, policing and human rights, including programmes run by the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), the Arias Foundation for Peace and Human Progress and the Central American Foundation for Peace and Democracy (Funpadem).
Chinchilla first served as vice minister and later minister for public order in the period 1994-1998, under the administration of José María Figueres. In parliament her listed areas of interest are: judicial reform; public security (policing, drugs trafficking, organised crime); political and institutional reform (state reform and electoral reform); external trade; technology; and, children and youth.
Time Line:
1989-1990: Ministry of Planning and Political Economy (MIDEPLAN) - consultant and technician on state reform and structural adjustment programmes.
1994-1996: Vice minister for public security and governance, National Drugs Council (CONADRO), ruling council member, President of the National Council on Migration.
1996-1998: Minister for public security and governance, Centro de Inteligencia Conjunto Antidrogas (CICAD), president of the directors' council.
2002-2006: Congress member in the legislative assembly, President of the Special Commission on Drug Trafficking, Member of the Commission on Judicial Affairs, Member of the Commission on International Affairs.
2006-2008: First vice- president, Minister for Justice. In April 2008, Chinchilla also served as interim Security Minister after the previous minister, Fernando Berrocal, was dismissed following his controversial (and unsubstantiated) allegations that the opposition in Costa Rica had links with a Colombian guerrilla group, the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc).
October 2008: Leaves the cabinet in order to run for the PLN nomination.
June 2009: Wins PLN nomination with 54% of the vote, against her nearest rival, Johnny Araya, the popular former mayor of San José, on 43%, with Fernando Berrocal, a former defence minister, on 3%.
Strengths: Chinchilla is an experienced administrator, her democratic credentials are impeccable and she is very popular, consistently rated among the top three favourite politicians in the country (along with Arias and Araya).
Her core competencies of judicial reform and public security should appeal to Costa Rican voters, who are increasingly concerned about rising levels of violent crime and insecurity in the country. As a female candidate, she will also play well with voters anxious for change.
Chinchilla has the full backing of President Arias, and his support should help secure her position as the leading candidate for 2010. On 15 April the local daily La República published a poll putting popular support for the Arias government at 53%, while Arias himself had an approval rating of 35%, the highest rating in 28 years for a president in the final year of his term.
The PLN's decision to hold open primaries was also an astute move. An estimated 500,000 turned out to vote (18.5% of the total national electorate of 2.7m), giving Chinchilla's victory added broad-based national strength. In contrast, her main opposition rival for 2010, Otton Solís, of the Partido Acción Nacional (PAN), had a much less convincing victory in a closed primary (open to registered party members only) with a poor turnout and a very high abstention rate (71%).
In policy terms, Chinchilla represents broad continuity with the orthodox centrist economic stance of the current government. In the current uncertain environment this should be an advantage. After posting several years of strong, export-led growth, the Costa Rican economy, which is heavily dependent on trade with the US, has tipped into recession, prompting renewed debate in some circles about its export-led development model. Yet despite tough times this year, the electorate broadly trusts the Arias government to steer the country through the economic downturn. In the April poll, 41% of respondents approved of its economic management, against 28% who disapproved.
Against this, Solís, on his third presidential bid, is a more divisive character - he led the bitterly polarising PAN campaign against Costa Rica's entry into the regional free-trade agreement with the US (Cafta-DR) and although he came a very close second to Arias in the 2006 presidential election, he may struggle to make the leap from opposition politician to potential future president. The PAN is relatively weak on the policy side, and the fact that it has not managed to inflict much damage at all on the Arias administration in the midst of a difficult economic downturn suggests that voters do not see Solis and the PAN as a credible alternative.
Weaknesses: Chinchilla's close links with the powerful Arias clan could be an electoral disadvantage and certainly Solis will use this against her, portraying her as part of the ruling elite. Polls indicate that crime and public insecurity is the one area where the Arias administration consistently falls down and as a previous justice minister this could be a weak point for Chinchilla's campaign. In the April poll, 30% of respondents expressed a lack of confidence in the police. The PAN will inevitably seek to make this an election issue moving into 2010.
Also, despite being minister of justice, Chinchilla has not spent a lot of time in the public eye and her policy stance on many key economic and external issues (like Cafta, relations with the US, Costa Rica's regional affairs etc) is not well known.
Chinchilla will also need to build bridges with her defeated rival, Araya, who desperately wanted the presidential nomination and for several months led the polls. Araya complained that strong government support for Chinchilla gave her an unfair advantage. Araya represents a competing section of the PLN: the urban working class and more conservative rural populations. Chinchilla, who appeals to the young, educated, professional urbanites (and women) will need to bring these sections onboard - it is unclear whether Araya would accept the number two slate.
Prospects: Chinchilla's status as a clean slate female presidential candidate (albeit not the first in Costa Rica's history), with the clear backing of the popular incumbent Oscar Arias, means that she has a very good shot at becoming the country's first woman leader in 2010.