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Friday, January 29th, 2016  |  USD: Buy 531.29 / Sell 543.92
20 years

Kenneth Morris: A Cautious Endorsement of Chema

Editor’s note: Inside Costa Rica never makes political endorsements, though opinion columnists are free to express themselves how they wish.  We encourage all readers (especially those of you who can vote) to come to your own conclusions.  Don’t agree with the views here?  Send a letter to the editor at [email protected] and we’ll publish it.   Views expressed by columnists are their own, and do not necessarily reflect those of Inside Costa Rica or its staff.  Columnists are not employees of Inside Costa Rica.

 

Inside Costa Rica doesn’t endorse political candidates, but its columnists can.  Accordingly, I suggest that readers consider supporting José María Villalta of the Frente Amplio (FA) in this coming Sunday’s presidential election.

 

Real world elections don’t permit pristine political choices, and this year’s presidential race is no exception.  Voters’ chief goal this year has to be to deprive titular frontrunner Johnny Araya of the Partido Liberación Nacional (PLN) of victory.

 

Ironically, although there are allegations to the contrary, Araya may not be a bad guy.  Certainly he has loads of political experience from his 15 years as mayor of San José, an office in which for the most part he proved himself a capable executive.  Plus he’s politically moderate.

 

Araya’s problem is his party, which has become a cesspool of crony corruption.   Voters must break the hammerlock the PLN holds on the country by depriving it of yet a third consecutive presidency.

 

According the polls, there are two candidates within striking distance of Araya, and perhaps even ahead of him:  Villalta from FA and Otto Guevara from the Movimiento Libertario (ML).

 

Even if he were otherwise a good choice, Guevara’s extreme rightwing libertarian ideology gives pause.  While the tax-cutting and private-market mantras of the ML appeal to some—and I personally welcome a libertarian block in the legislature—libertarianism is ultimately a dangerously dogmatic political fundamentalism.

 

And Guevera may not be a good choice otherwise.  Overlooking the corruption scandals that already dog the ML, there are concerns like Guevara’s also dangerously extreme position on abortion.  Guevara opposes even therapeutic abortion, namely to save the life of the mother.

 

This leaves Villalta, although to put it this way is a little unfair to a person who is well-informed, principled, and squeaky clean.

 

For a young city-slicker lawyer, for instance, Villalta knows more about farming than many farmers, in part because his father was an agronomist.  He has also made a point of developing expertise on environmental issues, and as a lawyer has specialized in environmental law.  Since he cut his political teeth battling neoliberal economic policies, he is also well-informed about economic issues.

 

A point likely to appeal to expats is that Villalta is less provincial than many Costa Rica politicians.  His mother is foreign born, he himself partly grew up in Peru, and his sister-in-law lives in New York City.  While some expats assume that Villalta’s opposition to neoliberal economic policies reflects a prejudice against the United States, this confuses political convictions with personal prejudices.  Personally, Villalta may well be the candidate most likely to treat foreigners with fairness and respect.

 

Some oppose Villalta because he is unabashedly a man of the left, and if you don’t want to see Costa Rica steered leftward, you obviously won’t want to support the FA.

 

However, you can’t believe the mudslinging that labels Villalta and the FA communist.

 

When he was in college at the University of Costa Rica, many of Villalta’s fellow left-leaning classmates were communists, and in case no one notices, there is a real communist party in Costa Rica, the Vanguardia Popular, running its own candidate for president.  (He’s the little guy with the beard who wears a cap.)  Villalta did not follow his classmates into the communist party, but instead joined with the Spaniard José Merino del Río to build the center-left party, the FA.

 

Basically, Villalta just cares about poor people, but understands that true help for them must take place within an overall framework of locally-based free enterprise and responsible public agencies, not within the framework foisted upon Costa Rica by foreign corporations.  If this is communism, I’ll eat that little bearded guy’s hat.

 

A more realistic concern is that, at 36, Villalta may be too young to ascend to the presidency.  Most of us prefer our presidents to have been tested by more diverse life experiences than student activism, a law degree, and a term in the legislature.

 

Yet, the flip side of Villalta’s relative inexperience is that he is not beholden to a political establishment that will demand favors from him after he is elected.

 

Some of Villalta’s friends believe he’s too young too.  They can’t quite believe that the fellow they know as Chema (the nickname for José María) is already within striking distance of the presidency, and they frankly mourn the loss of Merino del Río, whose death in 2012 is felt to have deprived the FA of its soul.

 

Even so, Villalta’s friends will vote for him.  They will because they respect him as a person of integrity and agree with his ideas.  Joining them at the polls casting votes for the FA will be cab drivers, farmers, small businesspeople, and others hoping to end the PLN’s reign of corruption while steering the country back in the direction of the social democracy that served Costa Rica well for over half a century.

 

In the real world of elections, this may be as good as it gets.

 

Kenneth E. Morris

Kenneth E. Morris taught at various colleges and universities in the US before moving to Costa Rica in 2006, where he is now a permanent resident. His most recent book is Unfinished Revolution: Daniel Ortega and Nicaragua's Struggle for Liberation (Chicago Review Press).

The views expressed by columnists are not necessarily those of Inside Costa Rica or its staff.

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