Caribbean & Central America - September 2014 (ISSN 1741-4458)

Given that President Luis Guillermo Solís heads a small, bitterly-divided party, the logic of using a set-piece speech on 28 August to lambast the sins of the country’s main political parties is not entirely clear. To mark 100 days in office, Solís chose to focus on the dire situation Costa Rica finds itself in and the extent of the culpability of the country’s two main parties, Partido Liberación Nacional (PLN) and the Partido Unidad Social Cristiana (PUSC). While quite possibly true, the speech will not help the president’s Partido Acción Ciudadana (PAC) to build the alliances necessary to pass legislation.

100 days

Without mentioning either of the two parties by name, Solís bemoaned the “unimaginable” disorder he had discovered on entering office, claiming that corruption had cost the country C$60.1bn (US$111m) over the past 15 years. His subsequent plea for a dialogue with all of Costa Rica’s political parties to improve the administration of the state met with a frosty response. The head of the PLN, Juan Luis Jiménez, described the president as petty and hypocritical for failing to recognise the “legacy” of previous administrations. Rafael Ortiz, leader of the PUSC, listed the anti-corruption achievements of former presidents Abel Pacheco (2002-2006) and Miguel Angel Rodríguez (1998-2002). Other party leaders criticised the president’s lack of concrete proposals on the issue.

Though corruption dominated his speech, Solís also addressed the country’s fiscal deficit, currently running at just over 6% of GDP. The solution, according to the president is to increase production. Tax revenues in 2012 reached 13.8% of GDP; Solís said that he wants to increase this, gradually, to 14%. In an effort to reach out to the business community, the president announced a series of consultations with the country’s leading industrialists prior to relaunching a “competitiveness council”.

Solís has his work cut out to get Costa Rica’s private sector on-side. In an attempt to honour his pre-election pleges to reduce inequality, the president also reiterated his commitment to create 217,000 jobs over the next four years, particularly for those in high unemployment categories, such as working mothers and those with disabilities. One of the leading private sector lobbying groups argues the plan has only taken into account social factors and not economic competitiveness. Given the president’s earlier flirtation with the idea of joining Petrocaribe, the Venezuelan preferential oil agreement, trust between the government and the business community is eroding quickly.

A house divided

One of Solís principle challenges is that he heads a party with just 13 seats in the 57-seat unicameral national legislature. The PAC is also internally divided, following a decision by its ethics committee to suspend deputy Victor Morales Zapata, a close ally of Solís, over corruption allegations dating back to 1994. On 3 September, the party’s president, Rodrigo Alberto Carazo, quit just two months into the job. “I did not fully realize the extent of the involvement required,” he said. “It has been so intense that it has significantly affected my health.” Carazo was engaged in the thankless task of trying to reconcile the party’s increasingly fractious members.

Meanwhile Solís’ namesake, the party’s founder, Otton Solís, continues to air in public his grievances with the PAC’s direction. Ottón has criticised the performance of the cabinet chief, Melvin Jiménez, a Lutheran bishop acting as the go-between the executive and the legislature; and has demanded the resignation of the deputy minister for the presidency, for using his position to benefit his family business. The situation deteriorated further on 7 September when Mariano Sales, an adviser to Jiménez, used a debate over party financing to demand that Ottón repay the C$438,000 (US$800) debt he owed the party’s executive committee.

• Conflict of interest

The split in the Partido Acción Ciudadana (PAC) widened during the course of its party conference over the weekend of 6-7 September. A number of party delegates who work for the presidency attended the meeting, prompting complaints of abuse of power by those party members who have no role in government.