CAFTA trade pact hinging on Costa Rican Election

Costa Rica is the only Central American country to not sign on to CAFTA. Nicaragua and El Salvador have done so and the election of the next president in Costa Rica will determine the outcome of CAFTA.

Washington is hopeful that the election will go to Oscar Arias, rather than Otton Solis who wants to take another look at CAFTA and renegotiate clauses. The two candidates are tied in a political dead heat.

Costa Rican candidate Otton Solis, a centrist, supports CAFTA in general but wants to renegotiate clauses that many Costa Ricans fear put the small nation at a disadvantage against subsidized U.S. agriculture imports. Costa Rica would also open up its telecommunications and power industries to multinationals. (Enron here we come.)

Nobel Peace laureate Oscar Arias, a social democrat, backs business interests. Scion of a rich coffee farming family, Arias, helped end civil wars in Central America in the 1980s and is Costa Rica's most famous son.

In two weeks a winner will be announced, or a runoff will be held in April should no candidate win a majority.

Nicaragua has an election in November 2006. Former President, Daniel Ortega, is one of the leading candidates. Ortega was defeated in 1990 in an election that was brought about by Reagan's illegal war involving the paramilitary group known as the contras.

El Salvador has had a right wing president since 2004, backed by the Bush administration. A media mogul, Elias Saca, who ran a campaign of fear with his weapon being the remittances workers earn and send from the US to support family. Saca used TV spots to spread rumors that these workers would be deported if the leftist candidate was elected.

As conservatives rule Washington, Central America is headed towards the left! This movement will only continue to grow and the winds of change will blow to EL NORTE!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/08/AR200602...