{"id":6503,"date":"2018-04-05T12:04:07","date_gmt":"2018-04-05T16:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/?p=6503"},"modified":"2018-04-05T12:04:07","modified_gmt":"2018-04-05T16:04:07","slug":"costa-rica-looks-a-little-less-exceptional-after-its-heated-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/?p=6503","title":{"rendered":"Costa Rica Looks a Little Less Exceptional After Its Heated Election"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Progressive values won in Costa Rica \u2013 for now, at least. AP Photo\/Arnulfo Franco<\/figcaption><\/figure>
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Carlos Alvarado Quesada has won the Costa Rican presidency with 61 percent of the vote<\/a>, an overwhelming victory for a progressive candidate who entered election day in a dead heat with his conservative rival.<\/p>\n

Alvarado Quesada, a 38-year-old former labor minister under the unpopular outgoing President Luis Guillermo Solis, ran on an \u201cagenda of equality<\/a>\u201d that included support for same-sex marriage, public education and renewable energy<\/a>. In Costa Rica, this is a rather classic political platform.<\/p>\n

But his opponent, Fabricio Alvarado Munoz \u2013 an evangelical senator and former Christian musician who opposes gay marriage, secularism and sex education in schools \u2013 won the first round of Costa Rica\u2019s election<\/a> in February. The April 1 runoff was widely viewed as a referendum on social values in country historically seen as stable and progressive.<\/p>\n

In a region where nearly every other nation faces extreme violence<\/a> and has a history of political unpheaval<\/a>, peaceable Costa Rica is sometimes called \u201cthe Switzerland of Central America<\/a>.\u201d Many commentators will tout Alvarado Quesada\u2019s triumph as a confirmation of Costa Rican exceptionalism.<\/p>\n

I see things differently. In the 15 years I have studied Central American politics<\/a>, deep fractures have emerged in Costa Rica\u2019s democracy \u2013 the same social and religious tensions that were on display in the 2018 election.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, I\u2019ve watched troubled El Salvador and Guatemala become stronger democracies. Costa Rica is still an exception, but it is closer to the Central American average than ever before.<\/p>\n

Costa Rican equality<\/strong><\/p>\n

The origins of Costa Rica\u2019s exceptionalism are often attributed to the fact that it has no military<\/a>. President Jos\u00e9 Figueres abolished it<\/a> after the country\u2019s brief 1948 civil war.<\/p>\n

As a result, modern Costa Rica has seen neither the military dictatorships nor protracted civil wars that plagued every other Central American Country during the 20th century<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Less defense spending has freed up the national budget, allowing Costa Rica to invest in gold-standard environmental protections<\/a> and universal public education. Its population is among the world\u2019s most literate<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Costa Rica is also wealthier than the rest of Central America<\/a>, which is one of the poorest regions on the globe. It scores as well as European nations on many of the United Nations\u2019 human development measures<\/a>, including gender equality. About a third of seats in Costa Rica\u2019s legislature are held by women<\/a>, thanks to strong gender parity laws<\/a>. Costa Rica had a woman president<\/a>, Laura Chinchilla, from 2010 to 2014.<\/p>\n

The country is also Central America\u2019s least corrupt<\/a>. Just 9 percent of Costa Ricans reporting having experienced corruption, according to Vanderbilt University\u2019s AmericasBarometer survey. By comparison, a quarter of Guatemalans say they\u2019ve been the victim of corruption.<\/p>\n

The state of democracy in Costa Rica<\/strong><\/p>\n

In some ways, this year\u2019s election was in keeping with Costa Rican tradition. Turnout was typically high<\/a> \u2013 about 62 percent<\/a>. The election was free and fair, as Costa Rica\u2019s elections usually are. There were none of the irregularities<\/a> seen in, say, Honduras\u2019 contested November 2017 presidential election<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But the campaign was still unusual. Nearly 40 percent of Costa Ricans voted for an ardently anti-gay candidate from the upstart Evangelical National Restoration Party. That is consequential in a historically secular country<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It is also significant that neither of the two finalists for president<\/a> was from a mainstream political party.<\/p>\n

The National Liberation Party decided to back Alvarado Quesada after he progressed to the second round of the election, but it was the first time since the party\u2019s founding in 1951<\/a> that its own nominee did not compete for Costa Rica\u2019s presidency, indicating widespread voter discontent with politics as usual.<\/p>\n

Neither did the official candidate of the Social Christian Unity Party, Costa Rica\u2019s mainstream conservative opposition, which did not back Alvarado Munoz<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The rise in outsider candidates and the unexpected strength of evangelical voters this year demonstrate that Costa Rica is less unified and less progressive than it once appeared.<\/p>\n

Guatemala\u2019s outsider candidates<\/strong><\/p>\n

Alvarado Quesada\u2019s victory does not erase these fissures. Watching him lag behind a religiously conservative, tough-on-crime political outsider with pop culture roots during most of the 2018 campaign, I was actually reminded of neighboring Guatemala<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In 2015 comedian Jimmy Morales won a surprise bid for that country\u2019s presidency. Competing against a former first lady, he ran on the slogan \u201cNeither corrupt nor a thief<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Political parties in Guatemala are traditionally weak<\/a>, so an outsider candidacy was not surprising there. In fact, many saw the Morales win as a positive sign for Guatemalan democracy.<\/p>\n

Morales was elected a month and a half after President Otto P\u00e9rez Molina stepped down to face trial on corruption charges<\/a>. Molina is one of hundreds of Guatemalan officials to be tried for corruption since 2007, when the country invited in a UN-backed anti-corruption commission<\/a> to clean house.<\/p>\n

Today Morales, a conservative, is himself embroiled in a corruption scandal<\/a>, confirming that public malfeasance remains a major political problem.<\/p>\n

But the nonviolent democratic transfer of power after a presidential resignation was a sign that peaceful change was possible in Guatemala<\/a>. This alone was a significant step forward for a Central American nation with a long history of conflict.<\/p>\n

El Salvador on the rise<\/strong><\/p>\n

Democracy is gaining ground in troubled El Salvador, too. There, the leftist Farabundo Mart\u00ed National Liberation Front (FMLN) and its main conservative opposition, ARENA, have participated together in politics since 1992, when peace accords brought quiet to El Salvador<\/a>. The two factions once fought each other in bloody civil war.<\/p>\n

Under the FMLN former revolutionaries, who have been in power since 2009<\/a>, El Salvador has followed a moderate political path, seeking to improve access to social services and reduce inequality<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I believe El Salvador has actually replaced Costa Rica as having the strongest party system in Central America<\/a>. This is an especially impressive achievement just 26 years after the 12-year civil war ended decades of military dictatorships<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In a country battling perhaps the world\u2019s highest homicide rates<\/a>, El Salvador has also created specialized courts<\/a> to address violence against women.<\/p>\n

More Salvadoran women are getting involved in politics<\/a>, too. From 2003 to 2012, the number of female mayors in El Salvador increased from 15 to 28, according to United Nations data. There are 262 mayors nationwide.<\/p>\n

Toward a Central American average<\/strong><\/p>\n

Guatemala and El Salvador are far from perfect democracies. As I argued in my recent book<\/a>, both still struggle to build the rule of law. Corruption and crime remain huge challenges<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Along with Uruguay, Costa Rica is still one of just two \u201cfull democracies<\/a>\u201d in all Latin America, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit, which ranks countries worldwide based on civil liberties, transparency and political participation, among other measures.<\/p>\n

But its neighbors are making strides. 60 percent of Guatemalans vote regularly<\/a> \u2013 just shy of the Costa Rican average. Turnout is even higher in El Salvador<\/a>. Central America is changing.<\/p>\n

\"TheSo is Costa Rica. In a region where democracy is improving, the 2018 election showed that it is just a little less of a Central American exception.<\/p>\n

Rachel E. Bowen<\/a>, Associate Professor of Political Science, The Ohio State University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Carlos Alvarado Quesada has won the Costa Rican presidency with 61 percent of the vote, an overwhelming victory for a progressive candidate who entered election day in a dead heat with his conservative rival. Alvarado Quesada, a 38-year-old former labor minister under the unpopular outgoing President Luis Guillermo Solis, ran on an \u201cagenda of equality\u201d…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":7225,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/images.theconversation.com\/files\/212826\/original\/file-20180402-189816-6iqpui.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[192],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-polity-governance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/124"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6503"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6503\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6505,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6503\/revisions\/6505"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}