By Blake Schmidt, Tico Times Staff

A press conference at the San José headquarters of the Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE) became heated yesterday when an ICE employees’ union leader took the microphone to criticize the naming of the institute’s new president.

“We don’t trust you,” Fabio Chávez, head of the Association of Costa Rican Electricity and Telcom Institute Employees (ASDEICE), told Pedro Quirós, the institute’s new president, who was named Tuesday and introduced himself to the press yesterday.   

ICE president Jorge Gutiérrez stepped down this week, citing health problems and denying that his resignation had anything to do with differences of opinion with President Oscar Arias’ administration over pending telecommunications reforms.

“I made the decision Sunday with my family after I had a hypertension attack,” Gutiérrez said, adding his high-stress 18-hour days as president, in addition to his struggle with diabetes, were taking a toll on his health.      

Quirós took his seat amid clashes with union leaders, who criticized the new head for his “attitude of privatization” and promised to fight his appointment, not ruling out the possibility of strikes.   Quirós denied that Arias’ administration wants ICE to privatize. 

Quirós has worked with companies in the United States and Brazil, headed technical missions to South American countries for the Organization of American States (OAS) and founded ICE’s National Operation System for Telecommunications in the 1960s, according to a copy of his resume provided by Casa Presidencial. 

His controversial naming by President Oscar Arias came as the President’s administration continued to put finishing touches on a proposed law to reform telecommunications that would open ICE’s monopoly on the market. This breakup has been long criticized by opponents of the controversial Central American Free-Trade Agreement with the United States (CAFTA), which Arias has said he hopes to see ratified by December.