Costa Rica’s opposition unites to isolate Solís
Costa Rica’s President Luis Guillermo Solís cut a lonely figure as he delivered his state-of-the-nation address to the 57-seat unicameral legislative assembly on 1 May. Solís became the first representative of the centre-left Partido Acción Ciudadana (PAC) to don the presidential sash a year earlier, breaking a political duopoly that had held sway over Costa Rican politics since 1930. But with the PAC winning just 13 seats, Solís faced being hamstrung unless his government could display a striking aptitude for consensus-building with the eight opposition parties in the legislative assembly. It has failed in this regard. Six of these parties just forged an alliance to control the legislative leadership positions, marginalising the PAC, and leaving Solís and his government’s reform agenda high and dry.
Right at the start of his state-of-the-nation address President Solís called for “renewed cross-party dialogue...to strengthen and modernise our democracy”. It was a theme he returned to again and again. “We’re leaving behind democratic adolescence and moving towards a mature, full and productive democracy”, he argued. “We’re advancing from formal democracy to real democracy”. This, however, was less a statement of fact than a statement of hope. It is true that Solís and the PAC broke the political stranglehold of the Partido Unidad Social Cristiana (PUSC) and the Partido Liberación Nacional (PLN) at the executive level this time last year, but at the legislative level they remain firmly hostage to the traditional political parties Solís boldly claimed to have displaced.