Orderly Costa Rica takes vote crisis in stride

By John McPhaul

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (Reuters) – Costa Rica is embroiled in
its most contested election of modern times but unlike other
Latin American countries where upheaval is rife, the quiet
Central American nation is expected to sail through.

A small country with no army, Costa Rica has gone about its
daily business with little fuss since Nobel Peace laureate
Oscar Arias tied with Otton Solis, his former planning
minister, in last Sunday’s election.

Both candidates won just over 40 percent but neither is
claiming victory until the electoral body gives a final count.
That could take 2 weeks but newspapers say partial figures from
the recount put Arias, a former president, ahead.

In one of the few signs of anything out of the ordinary, a
small group of 20 college students has been holding a sporadic
vigil in front of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal to protest
against Arias and a U.S. free trade deal with Central America
he supports.

Costa Rica, a producer of high-quality coffee, sees itself
as more orderly than the rest of Central America and avoided
the civil wars that tore the region apart in the 1980s.

“It’s a country that’s accustomed to elections every four
years. Clean, crystalline, transparent elections,” Arias told
Reuters.

A series of corruption cases has tarnished the country’s
reputation in recent years. Two former presidents were jailed
briefly in 2004 on charges of receiving bribes from foreign
countries.

Inflation last year was one of the highest in Latin America
at 14 percent, and large groups of demonstrators have taken to
the streets in recent years to protest at attempts to break the
state’s telecoms and electricity monopoly.

Other protests are expected if Congress approves the trade
pact with Washington, known as CAFTA.

FAIR PLAY

But a tradition of fair play in politics is strong.

“What one expects is that the loser or the losers pick up
the telephone and call the winners to say “I’m here to serve,
congratulations.”

Costa Rica’s army was abolished in 1948 by then President
Jose Figueres after a civil war.

The history of Costa Rica was already different from that
of its volatile neighbors. With no significant gold reserves or
Indian populations to exploit, the country was more or less
left to its own devices during Spanish colonial rule and it
developed strong political institutions from an early date.

Costa Rica is the only country in the region not to ratify
CAFTA because of fears it will damage small farmers and local
industry.

There have been no claims of serious fraud in the Costa
Rican election unlike in countries like Mexico where vote
rigging allegations are common.

“There is a lot of confidence in the process of counting
the votes by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal. Costa Rica has
many years of experience with elections where the will of the
majority is always respected,” said Jorge Castro, a retired
economics professor.

Costa Ricans are more reserved than many of their
neighbors.

“Costa Rica is a culture that avoids confrontation,” said
Jorge Rovira, a sociologist with the University of Costa Rica’s
Institute of Social Research.

“Costa Ricans will accept less rather than enter into
confrontation,” he said.

Some Costa Ricans see the calm after the election as a
signal of apathy and resignation in the face of a system
plagued by corruption.

“It’s probably because this time what we expect is more of
the same. There’s no assurance that anything is going to
change,” said Andres Rodriguez, 24, a law office messenger.