by Rod Hughes

Knowing governments, parliamentary bodies and politics in general, it should come as no great shock that sole members of their minuscule parties in the Legislative Assembly boast the biggest staffs. And who pays the salaries of those assistants? Guess, fellow taxpayers!

In all, Costa Rican resident pay for 306 aides for the 57 legislators. If all of them had 10 aides, as does Oscar Lopez, the number of aids would be 570. Fortunately, that is no the case. Lopez, the sole gadfly representative of his minuscule Restoration and Accessibility without Exclusion party, told the newspaper La Nacion that, after all, …”I’m the chief of my (party’s) delegation…”

He claims certain “prerogatives” as the chief of a party whose active participants could probably fit into the National Theater. Citizen Action party (PAC) floor leader, Elizabeth Fonseca, has another viewpoint, “I don´t know how the others do it with so many aides. It would complicate my life to have so many people, so I would´t know how to keep them busy. We have two advisers and an assistant¨”

But not all the large staffs are assigned to just one-person parties. Number four party in the last elections, Social Christian Unity, has five representatives with eight assistants each. Since Unity performed so poorly in the past elections and carries so little clout, we cannot avoid wondering, like Sra. Fonseca, what these 40 aides do.

Jose Manuel Echandi and Evita Arguedas, both independents, enjoy nine and seven aides. But the 17 members of PAC lawmakers make do with the fewest. according to the congressional administration’s Human Resources section, followed by the 25 of the biggest party, National Liberation.