Caribbean & Central America - January 2012 (ISSN 1741-4458)

Unfortunately for Costa Ricans, the governmental priorities at the onset of 2012 are the same as those cited at the start of 2011. The past year was effectively lost, both due to the political in-fighting that marred relations within members of the ruling Partido Liberación Nacional (PLN) as well as the opposition’s inability to maximize its newly acquired control of the legislative assembly (AL) and force the PLN to make concessions regarding key legislative initiatives such as the long-delayed fiscal reform. There is, in fact, very little to show for the considerable political mudslinging that characterized 2011. Were it not for the regular public confrontations between Costa Rican and Nicaraguan officials over the border dispute in the vicinity of the San Juan River, the administration of President Laura Chinchilla could be faring even worse in public opinion polls.

In fact, a survey conducted by the University of Costa Rica (UCR) released on 14 November 2011, found that 53.7% of respondents believe President Chinchilla has “no power to govern” (against 22.7% who believe she does). Furthermore, when presented with the statement “the cabinet that the president has is good for nothing”, 52.6% of the people interviewed agreed with it against only 17% who disagreed. At the time, President Chinchilla answered press questions about the results by saying, “tell me in which poll we do well, I don’t see news in [reporting] this [result]”; however, the president missed the point that the results, rather than showing discontent with this administration in particular, reflect a more widespread discontent with the entire political system.

It is true that the president and her party stand to lose the most as they are currently in government, but an earlier poll (published by Unimer in late October) showed that 44% of respondents believe the AL’s performance in 2011 had been “bad” or “regular”. That this general discontent with the performance of politicians affects representatives from all parts of the political spectrum was further demonstrated by the poll’s result in which people said that two-thirds of all legislation passed by the AL in 2011 was “useless”.

Opposition: jostling for power

In early January Oscar López, the president of the opposition Partido Accesibilidad Sin Exclusión (Pase), offered his party’s four votes to the ruling PLN at the 1 May AL election. If the two groups were to reach an agreement, President Chinchilla could recover control of the assembly which she lost in a historic May 2011 vote [RC-11-04]. In exchange for its votes, Pase wants the AL presidency. It also wants all four of its AL members to be appointed to the eight-person directorate from May - the PLN would take the other four spots. If the two parties reach an agreement, it will not only destroy the opposition alliance that took over the AL directorate from the PLN last year, but it will also make it harder for the opposition to rally behind a single unity candidate for the 2014 presidential election.

The PLN currently has 24 members in the 57-seat legislature, but it needs 29 to gain the control of the directorate, which sets the legislative agenda. It has already secured the votes of two evangelical parties, Restauración Nacional and Renovación Costarricense, which have one representative each. With Pase support, the PLN would have 30 votes.

• Costa Rica and Nicaragua vie to outdo each other

In early December, the Nicaraguan government led by President Daniel Ortega submitted a letter of complaint to Costa Rica regarding a 160km road construction project near their common border. Nicaragua reminded Costa Rica that it had committed to share the results of an environmental impact assessment (EIA) for the road project and denounced the road as “a crime against nature”. A few days later, Costa Rica’s supreme court of justice (CSJ) agreed to consider an injunction filed by two Costa Rican NGOs against the council for road safety (Cosevi) and President Laura Chinchilla, marking the first time that the CSJ has agreed to consider an injunction filed against a serving president.

In late December, the Costa Rican government sent a formal note to its Nicaraguan counterpart, accusing 15 Nicaraguan soldiers of entering “approximately 1 kilometre into Costa Rican territory” and of “threatening” Costa Rican police officers. The alleged incursion has heightened tensions between the two countries over the disputed border area and it is still unclear how the two governments will end this year-long tit-for-tat strategy. 

• Figueres speaks against premature competition

In what could be seen as a clear attack on Rodrigo Arias Sánchez, the brother and minister of former President Oscar Arias Sánchez (2006-2010), former President José María Figueres (1994-1998) said in early January that it was too early for potential PLN 2014 presidential candidates to begin jostling for power; instead, he holds that all party members should rally behind President Laura Chinchilla in what is expected to be a tough year ahead. Rodrigo Arias is so far the only declared presidential pre-candidate; the mayor of San José, Johnny Araya, and Antonio Alvarez Desanti, a local businessman affiliated to the PLN who served in the legislative assembly during Figueres’s administration, are being touted as the other two possible contenders