by Rod Hughes

The Episcopal Council of Costa Rica’s Catholic Church has published a document calling for the public to respect the will of the majority in the Oct. 5 referendum that ratified CAFTA. The call for unity comes in the wake of recent pressure by university students and public employees’ unions to disrupt the talks between the government and the Citizen Action Party (PAC), chief congressional opposition to ratification of the free trade treaty, and now, the 13 pending bills to bring laws into alignment with the treaty.

It may be remembered that the same union chiefs were the ones who warned that they would not “recognise” the election of President Oscar Arias if he were elected—which, of course, he was. But Archbishop Hugo Barrantes, bishops Jose Francisco Ulloa of Cartago, Guillermo Loría of San Isidro de El General, Oscar Ferandez of Puntarenas, Angel San Casimiro of Alajuela, Vittorino Girardi of Tilarán and Jose Rasel Quiros of Limon have a different concept of democracy, obviously. Although the bishops and many priests opposed the trade pact, their archbishop repeatedly said that the Church was not officially taking sides. But the students, egged on by some leftist professors, and the union moguls are taking no prisoners, evidently.

The Council’s document said in part, “We respectfully call for all sectors…and persons involved in the recent process of the referendum to promote respect for the will of the majority.” The bishops added that by doing so all might “ennoble, once more, our history.”

Meanwhile the final count of the Oct. 5 balloting is in, differing very little from preliminary figures. The 1,572,584 ballots represented 59.24% of eligible voters. The 805,658 “yes” votes was 51.56% of the total while the 756,814 of the votes against was at 48.44%. Nullified ballots kept 8,609 from being counted while 1,603 were turned in blank. Supreme Elections Tribunal officials commented that relatively few ballots were defaced with slogans or drawings as oftimes happens in regular elections, indicating that the vast majority of voters took their task seriously.

No question can be legitimately raised about the validity of the vote. The English-language weekly The Tico Times reported that international observers came away impressed at the organization and orderliness of the balloting process. Thereafter, each ballot was carefully scanned for tampering or other irregularities.

Regarding the university students’ attitude, we have a modest question. Don’t high schools here teach civics anymore?