Caribbean & Central America - December 2011 (ISSN 1741-4458)

The opposition-controlled unicameral national assembly delivered another blow to President Laura Chinchilla in late November when it approved its own version of the 2012 budget, which included a CR$25bn (US$50m) cut to the government’s CR$5,872bn (US$11.8bn) original proposal. The opposition’s budget was approved on 27 November by 23 votes to 20 in the 57-seat legislature, which has hitherto failed to reach an agreement over the government’s proposed fiscal reform. Furthermore, negotiations over the budget have laid bare political frictions, both within the opposition alliance and between the executive and members of the ruling Partido Liberación Nacional (PLN).

In the case of the former, the Movimiento Libertario (ML), the largest party in the alliance, voted against the reduction (and the position adopted by the other alliance members); in the case of the PLN, several members of the legislature have stated publicly that they do not agree with the government’s negotiation strategy. The government did in fact agree with some of the cuts proposed by the opposition Partido Acción Ciudadana (PAC) in an attempt to retain the latter’s support for the proposed fiscal reform, manoeuvring which some PLN deputies have described as “shameful”.

The executive, however, may introduce a new bill to congress asking for the funds that were cut to be redistributed through a special discretionary spending fund, whose use would be decided by the executive directly; the approval of such a bill remains highly unlikely and could further discredit the ruling PLN in the assembly. During the week prior to the budget’s approval, the PLN broke the assembly’s quorum repeatedly to avoid being defeated, but could no longer resort to this technique on 27 November since the budget would have been approved automatically as per existing congressional rules.

• Bridge goes ahead despite row

The US$20m project to construct a bridge over the San Juan River joining Costa Rica and Nicaragua is due to go ahead despite the ongoing diplomatic dispute over Nicaragua’s alleged violation of Costa Rican sovereignty in Calero Island. The construction of the bridge was agreed by the two countries in 1995 and is expected to be completed by 2014, providing an alternative route to the traditional border crossing of Peñas Blancas. Nicaragua has already began building customs, police, migration and phytosanitary control stations in front of the river San Juan at the  Las Tablillas crossing - the river, a regular source of bilateral tensions, doesn’t constitute the common border at this geographic point.