Contentious CAFTA – A Turning Point for Costa Rica?
Five of the six countries, including Costa Rica, which signed the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) with the United States, have now ratified it. Oscar Arias, Costa Rica’s Nobel Laureate president, signed the agreement in November 2007, after the pro-CAFTA forces in his country won a hard fought election by a margin of approximately 3 percent. The necessary and enabling legislation is now moving slowly through its National Assembly despite resistance from its opponents. The pro-CAFTA legislative super majority of 38 has managed to hold tight. But, if one member of this center-right alliance becomes ill, or incapacitated, a vote cannot be cast. The opposition has been allowed to present its objections, and then the super majority reacted by holding tenaciously to its pre-ordained position. Although the referendum supporting the treaty revealed a fairly even split in the electorate, it would be fair to say that the majority of the electorate wishes that the opposition would throw in the towel by a margin of about two to one, according to a recent poll taken by La Nación, Costa Rica’s major newspaper. However, a tiny defection would deep six the treaty, and so the majority hopes for a quick ratification of the agreement.
Costa Rica, for all the talk of pervasive corruption on the part of one of its presidents after another, is known as one of Central America’s- perhaps even Latin America’s – most stable democracy, and it has had a successful mixed economy that developed since the end of World War II. There has been a good public health plan at work that has resulted in life expectancy figures equal to those of the United States, a literacy rate of 98 percent, a highly regarded national university, and an efficient electric power and telecommunications enterprises that exports electricity throughout Central America and provides the cheapest cell phone service in the western hemisphere. Costa Rica’s per capita gross domestic product of $12,500 is twice that of such neighboring states as Nicaragua and Panama, 400 percent greater than Honduras, and about the same as that of Chile—another energized social-democracy.
CAFTA and Costa Rica
Previous attempts to privatize or break up the Insituto Costarricense de Electicidad or the Costa Rican Institute of Electricity (ICE), the emblematic government entity that controls electricity and telecommunications, as well as convert the pension and public health plans, failed when there were large strikes and public demonstrations by concerned citizens. However, hardly anyone turned out in the beginning of December when the anti-CAFTA forces attempted to marshal their cadres by increasing the tempo of strikes at ICE.