Costa Rica Left-Wing Presidential Candidate, Solis, Vows to Obstruct CAFTA

[arcos]

Costa Rica Left-Wing Presidential Candidate, Solis, Vows to Obstruct CAFTA

(AXcess News) Houston, TX - Otton Solis, a leftwing presidential candidate for the Citizens' Action party in Costa Rica said that CAFTA would "bankrupt Costa Rica's agricultural sector" if approved.

<snip>

Costa Rica's electoral authorities are almost certain to proclaim Oscar Arias, the country's former president and a firm believer in CAFTA, winner of this month's closely fought presidential election. The result of a manual recount last week showed Arias with a slim lead of 1.1 per cent over Solis, and observers expect authorities to declare Arias the winner by the second week of March.

But Solis' Party could still end up with as many as 18 of the legislative assembly's 57 seats, enough to cause Arias difficulties in obtaining the qualified majority needed to ratify CAFTA.

<snip>

"The private multinationals are not going to come for the bad parts of the telecommunications market. They are going to go for the beef, which is what allows our state institution to subsidise the losses in the bad markets and achieve universal access," said Solis.

<snip>

http://www.axcessnews.com/modules/wfsection/article.php?articleid=8376


Ottón Solís is not your "typical" left winger, he's fairly centrist and although he admires Lula and Bachelet, he's pretty critical of Chávez. Sadly, it seems that he lost the Presidential election that was held three weeks ago. But at least neoliberals are now warned that they cannot continue pushing the economic measures that have been mandated from Washington for the last decades, because people are tired of them and are willing to give others a chance to do something different that really benefits everyone.

[Up2Late]

1. Good for him!

I'm not sure why folk haven't responded to this post, it could be that most don't know much about Costa Rica, or they might not like "axceesnews."

Axcessnews looks very much like the corporate PR "newswire" sites I've seen, and no other papers have picked it up, according to Google.

Here's a Financial Times link, maybe they'll like it better:

<http://news.ft.com/cms/s/7f4e8020-a736-11da-b12c-0000779e2340.html>

[arcos]

5. Most people here don't care much what happens around the world...

Much less, in a tiny Central American country.

In fact, most posts about any Latin America country except Mexico, Venezuela and Bolivia get very little attention and hardly more than 10 posts. And usually most of those posts are made by the same people who participate in all other threads about Latin America, and this thread is a good example... IndianaGreen, Judi Lynn, you and me.

It amazes me how little attention foreign affairs get at DU.

[Flanker]

6. I care too

The small central american nations have been to rightist though, here is hoping they too join the South American region in integation talks.

[Up2Late]

7. Yes, I've noticed that too and it's rather sad...

...but also sort of understandable. I don't know if all of the DU members you mentioned, are native born U.S. Citizens or if they are immigrants (I was born in Michigan, but my Father is a French immigrant), but those of us who grew up here were taught so much false information, about all of the countries south of the Mexican border, that confusion, dis-trust and down right ignorance of Central and South America is almost unavoidable.

This might sound strange but, when I went to photography school in California, I met, for the first time in my life, a "white" Mexican woman. Before that, growing up in Indiana (and before Telemundo or Univision) I never knew their was such a thing. It's still very rare to meet one in this country, and except for the Telenovela's on Telemundo and Univision, it rare to know they exist.

The more I explore the internet, the more amazed I am at how little I know about Central and South America.

[IndianaGreen]

2. Arias is a neoliberal globalist

He is out of tune with the rest of Latin America. His presidency will be a short-lived one.

Arias is not an evil man, but he is as relevant today as Ronald Reagan would be if he were to walk among us as a zombie.

[Judi Lynn]

3. I hope you're right, and he won't last too long. The answers his kind

have for the world's problems are grotesque. I can't wait to see the world show these clowns the door.

[arcos]

4. It won't be short lived, he'll serve his 4 year term...

Unless of course, he dies in office.

He'll serve out his term, but he won't be able to accomplish much. If he wants to do it, he will need to move to the left and abandon much of his economic agenda.