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AFTER REFERENDUM, COSTA RICA STILL A LONG WAY FROM CAFTA IMPLEMENTATION--THE BATTLE CONTINUES.

Article Excerpt
The fight regarding the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) is not over in Costa Rica. One might have thought that, when the electorate narrowly approved the referendum on Oct. 7 (see NotiCen, 2007-10-18), the contention would have been laid to rest, Costa Rica would have ceased to be the last holdout, and CAFTA would have become a fact in the country, just as it is in Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, and the Dominican Republic. But one would have been wrong, reckoning without the Asamblea Legislativa (AL), which is still very much divided on CAFTA and which has yet to pass the 13 enabling laws, the Implementation Agenda, that would allow CAFTA to become operational.

The AL has until March 1, 2008, to get these laws passed. This is the second legislature to make the attempt. The treaty was negotiated during the presidency of Abel Pacheco (2002-2006). But Pacheco was ambivalent about it (see NotiCen, 2005-05-12) and was not willing or able to move his party, the now almost defunct Partido Unidad Social Cristiana (PUSC), to pass the laws before the May 2006 end of the legislative term.

Other problems were posed by the series of high-level scandals that saw revered ex-presidents indicted and by the formidable opposition mounted by the Partido Accion Ciudadana (PAC) under its leader Otton Solis. Solis went on to be very narrowly defeated in the presidential elections that brought Oscar Arias to power, and he is still very much in the game, as opposed as ever to a treaty he has long said must be renegotiated from the ground up (see NotiCen, 2006-02-09).

Arias' Partido de Liberacion Nacional (PLN) now has 25 of the Asamblea's 57 seats, short of a simple majority and way short of the supermajority (38) it was able to...