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28 Days To Change of Power
With only 28 days to go before
Costa Rican go to the voting
booth, candidates are scrambling
to visit all over Costa Rica,
bringing their message to the
small towns and villages as
well.
Óscar Arias Sánchez, of the
Partido Liberación Nacional (PLN)
is the front runner. He along
with his first vice-president,
Doña Laura (Chinchilla) and
second vice-president Kevin (Casas)
are promising not to bring the
same old administration, but
rather to build a new future for
Costa Rica.
Runner up, Ottón Solís Fallas,
of the Partido Acción Ciudadana
(PAC), is claiming that the
costly campaign mounted by Arias
is just the beginning of the
corruption to come. Solís says
that many have made "large"
contributions and expect
something in return.
Other candidates like Otto
Guevara Guth, of the Movimiento
Libertario (ML) and Antonio
Álvarez Desanti, of the Partido
Unión para el Cambio (PUC) are
sticking closer to issues of the
common folf, like the vehicular
inspection monopoly known as
Riteve and helping the poor.
Desanti wants to modernize
agricultural production as way
of helping farmers rise from
poverty, while Desanti is
sticking to popular sentiments
of why demand vehicular revision
when the roads are so poor that
most cars cannot pass the test
without necessary costly repair
from pothole damages.
Arias is so far ahead on the
polls that is the election were
held today, there is no doubt of
the results. The Christmas wish
of Solís and others for a second
round election are remote.
Solís was responsible for the
2002 second round election that
saw Abel Pacheco elected, when
neither of the top two parties -
Pacheco of the PuSC and Araya of
the PLN - were able to obtain
the necessary 40% of the vote to
be declared a winner.
For the next coming weeks
presidential candidates will be
all over Costa Rica, bringing
their message to the people,
supporting the efforts of local
politicians. Then it is back to
the Central Valley and the
Metropolitan area of San José.
The election is on the first
Sunday of February (5th) and we
can be assured that the
political propaganda will
intensify.
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