Costa Rica's Government Wins As Country Votes Yes To CAFTA

Costa Rica's Government Wins As Country Votes Yes To CAFTA
By Leland Baxter-Neal. Courtesy of The Beach Times

Costa Ricans have voted by a slim margin to approve the Central American Free-Trade Agreement with the United States (CAFTA), handing President Oscar Arias a key victory.

Preliminary results, with 97.9 per cent of the vote counted, showed 51.6 per cent of voters approving of the pact, and 48.3 per cent rejecting it. An automatic manual recount of the votes is now underway and is expected to conclude in the coming week.

From the capital city to mountain coffee towns to coastal villages, Costa Ricans of all ages and walks of life became the first voters in the world to decide the fate of a free-trade agreement, in what was also Costa Rica’s first national referendum.

Nearly 60 per cent of registered voters turned out for the election, flying Yes and No flags from their cars or on their t-shirts, easily surpassing the 40 per cent needed to make the results binding.

The tight outcome mirrored the even-tighter presidential election last year — when pro-CAFTA Arias squeaked by anti-CAFTA candidate Ottón Solís 40.9 to 39.8 percent — and belied a country split nearly down the middle.

The night of the election, as initial results began streaming in, the “Yes” camp claimed victory and President Arias, speaking to a celebratory gathering of supporters at Casa Presidencial, called for national unity.

“The borders that divide us disappear. We are no longer those from Yes and those from No. As of today, we are one Costa Rica, one people that want, need and deserve to reach development,” the President said.

Though narrow, the victory is seen by many as a crucial victory and second mandate for the President, whose policies had become so inextricable from CAFTA that Mr Arias said shortly before the vote he had no “plan B” for if the treaty was rejected.

“With this, the government almost renews and re-legitimizes its mandate, of course with only a modest margin, but more uncontestable than the (presidential) election,” said Eduardo Ulibarri, director of the Insituto de Prensa y Libertad de Expresión (IPLEX), and former editor of the daily newspaper La Nación. “It is a ratification of the administration and also the political and economic orientation they have given their government.”

Regional voting in the referendum, however, was markedly different than the Presidential election. Then, Arias lost in the more affluent, Central Valley provinces, but took outlying areas such as Puntarenas and Guanacaste. In Sunday’s vote, Puntarenas and Guanacaste joined Alajuela as the only provinces to reject CAFTA.

“There is a sector of the population that is marginalized from the development that is so visible — the big hotels, the condominiums, the Liberia airport. There, it is a matter of contrast,” Mr Ulibarri said.

For those in the export industry — which had campaigned heavily in favor of the agreement, and where some businesses said they would be forced to leave the country should the treaty not pass — Sunday’s vote came as a relief.

“We couldn’t be happier,” said Tomás Gilmore, president of Sardimar, Central America’s biggest canned tuna exporter, and the third largest exporter in the central Pacific, where it is based out of the port city of Puntarenas. Had CAFTA not passed, tuna exports to the United States would have gone from a three per cent tariff to a 34 per cent tariff in one year, he said, and the company would have moved some operations to another Central American country.

“Now that the Yes vote came through, we are investing a further $6 million in plant expansion (in Costa Rica), which will double capacity by the middle next year,” Mr Gilmore said. The expansion will include more jobs, though the Mr Gilmore said it was not yet clear how many.