by Rod Hughes

The following is a news analysis by an apolitical observer who has been entertained by Costa Rican political posturing for more than three decades. Opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of the sponsors of these Web pages.

The resignation this week by Libertarian Movement congresswoman Evita Arguedas from her party–although not from her seat on the Legislative Assembly–has stimulated a quick, stinging reaction from the hierarchy of her party. In her public resignation statement she accused the party of being “obstructionist” and “extremist.”
Understandably, party president Otto Guevara and Argiedas’s five Libertarian ex-colleagues in the Assembly have a different view of her defection. She resigned Tuesday. The day after, the party issued a statement that contained these words: “The Libertarian Movement is the victim of betrayal by an opportunist who used the party to gain power, once there, abandoned her commitments.” The statement called for her to step down from her congressional seat, which she has refused to do.

Libertarians are the consumate small government adherants. Some on the left consider them so far right as to be almost anarchists. During the last legislative session, during which former President Abel Pacheco was unable to accomplish any of his pet projects, the Libertarians blocked bills by introducing countless amendments and otherwise throwing procedural monkey wrenches into the works. So fragmented with small parties was that session that this was easy to do and the Libertarians were not the only ones guilty of such maneuvering. During that session, another Libertarian Assembly deputy, José Francisco Salas, also resigned but such was the disorder in the house that few even took note.

But at the beginning of Arias’s term, the Libertarians entered into a loose alliance with the president’s National Liberation Party and appeared more cooperative, partly because of Ms. Arguedas and partly because of the free trade treaty, CAFTA, that looked as if it would come to a congressional vote. Libertarians are all for removing tariffs, along with a lot of other governmental machinery. But even before CAFTA was put on the the referendum ballot, the party’ cooperative attitude began to dissolve, as did Arguedas’s influence in the six-person delegation. She considered her colleagues to be suffering from a sort of hardening of the doctrinal arteris.

Minister of the Presidency Rodrigo Arias appeciates Arguedas and said of her in the daily La Nación, “Doña Evita Arguedas has sufficient judgment and capacity to do what a party delegation advises. Her decision is very measured and reasoned. She has always had an independent judgment.”

Arguedas dismisses the Libertarian statement with, “When there are no valid arguments to contradict what I say, they attack me. Don Otto (Guevara) knows I came (to congress) to change the party’s image–I haven’t moved even a milimeter from this idea. They were the ones who changed.”

The dissident deputy also accused her party colleagues of sexism but said sexism was rampant in the Legislative Assembly generally. Whatever one thinks of Arguedas, opportunist or patriot, this last criticism is easy to believe. Costa Rica has one of the highest percentages of women elected representatives. This has upset, but not eliminated, the old boy network that used to rule the congressional roost.

The mostly male party leaders have learned to live with it, but they don’t have to like it…