Costa Rica elects 1st woman president in landslide

[arcos]

Source: AP

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica – Costa Ricans have elected their first woman president as the ruling party candidate won in a landslide after campaigning to continue free market policies in Central America's most stable nation.

With most of the votes from Sunday's election counted, Laura Chinchilla held a 22-point lead over her closest rival. Her 47 percent share of the vote was well beyond the 40 percent needed to avoid a run-off.

The 50-year-old protege of the current president, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Oscar Arias, promised to pursue the same economic policies that recently brought the country into a trade pact with the U.S. and opened commerce with China.
...

The closest contender, Otton Solis of the Citizens Action Party, got 25 percent of the votes. He and the other main rival, Libertarian Otto Guevara, quickly conceded defeat.

...

Chinchilla, the mother of a teenage son, is a social conservative who opposes abortion and gay marriage. She appealed both to Costa Ricans seeking a fresh face and those reluctant to risk the unknow

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100208/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_costa_rica_elections

[ck4829]

1. Too bad she's the Costa Rican Sarah Palin

[Robb]

2. There's a diplomatic challenge.

...Not sure I could keep from giggling while addressing "President Chinchilla." :D

[LeftishBrit]

3. Ugh (not because she's a woman, but because she's a right-winger)

Sounds like more of the status quo there.

[arcos]

4. Pretty much nt

[Peace Patriot]

5. The leftist, Otton Solis, did better than the Associated Pukes predicted.

They said he'd come in third. He came in second.

Solis strongly opposed CAFTA (U.S. dominated "free trade for the rich"), which was also strongly opposed by labor unions, small farmers, small business, environmental groups and other grass roots groups. He almost won the presidency against Arias in 2006. And CAFTA (a national plebiscite) was also an extremely close vote, concerning which it is said that Arias "called in all of his political chips" in Costa Rica to do that favor for George Bush.

I don't know much about what's happened since, politically, but I suspect that those representing the interests of the majority--the labor unions, small farmers, etc.-- may have gotten so smashed and demoralized by what have become very expensive campaigns in Costa Rica--gearing up small donors to compete on the money front and losing so closely--that they haven't yet recovered. Costa Rica is becoming like the U.S. as to overwhelming influence of big money/corporate money** on elections. And it also may be that the impacts of CAFTA have not yet fully hit home in Costa Rica (deregulation, privatization of public services, falling wages and benefits, environmental degradation, banksterism, loss of sovereignty). U.S. "free trade for the rich" deals have an unbroken record of destroying Latin American economies, but they sometimes first create a privileged, nouveau rich, urban class, which supports "free trade for the rich" (cuz they wanna get rich), while the poor majority gets poorer and the country's sovereignty--its ability to reverse the decline, when it comes--is eaten away.

-------------------

**(I don't know if Costa Rica additionally has "TRADE SECRET" voting machines, with the code owned and controlled by rightwing corporations and with virtually no audit/recount controls, as we do. It wouldn't surprise me, though, to find out that this "neo-liberal" innovation has been fast-tracked in Costa Rica.)

[arcos]

6. Solís had been trailing in the polls, AP didn't make it up...

It was until the last couple of weeks that he started gaining, and until the VERY last poll that he managed to tie Otto Guevara.

Other than that, you are mostly right. Campaign are really really expensive, and you just can't compete with the big money. Also, LOTS of mistakes have been made by the center-left parties and organizations which have prevented real unity against the common enemy.

[Peace Patriot]

7. Thanks for the info! I fear that Costa Rica is in for a rough ride--like everybody else hit with

the "shock doctrine" including us.

[arcos]

8. Yup, pretty much... I wrote a bit about the campaign and the candidate a few days ago...

Here's the post:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=405x29697#29722

[arcos]

9. Right wing parties won over 70% of the vote...

Religious fundamentalists won a second seat (they've been able to elect one for the last 3 or 4 elections), and a party of special needs people which tends to be very conservative on social issues was able to get four seats, up from the one they've held for the last 4 years. So we will have a solid block of 6 social conservative congressmen, in addition to 10 or 11 extreme right wingers on economic issues from the Libertarian Movement Party.