Elections Tribunal Got Five Referendum Proposals
by Rod Hughes
The Supreme Elections Tribunal, placed in charge of referendums by the enabling legislation passed in 2006, has received five requests to mount nationwide voting on varied issues but has so far approved only one, the referendum that approved the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA).
Two were rejected outright: a plea to clarify the boundry between Guanacaste and Puntarenas provinces in the Gulf of Nicoya and a claification of marine and terrestrial divisions in Golfito on the southern Pacific coast. Both were considered purely local issues by the tribunal, not national concerns.
Two other issues are pending, one characterized by Magistrate Eugenia Zamora as “a little odd.” It would define the boundry between Costa Rica and Nicaragua which some cartographers and border residents say is marked incorrectly in some places. But the bizaare aspect is that the same proposal contains a requisite that each service window of the Social Security (Caja) health offices would have a bail of holy water. Zamora assumes this is aimed at inducing the Caja officials to give better service.
The difficulty about the boundry referendum is that it would require consultation of both countries’ voters, but so far the proposition has been referred back (with a straight face) to the gentleman offering it so he can remedy certain “procedural problems.”
The other proposal has environmental groups busily gathering the requisite number of signatures to vote on two bills currently stalled in congress.