In second
place, with 17.9 percent, is economist Ottón Solís,
a good man but also a low-intensity populist trapped in the old
statist rhetoric, an adversary of the Central American Free Trade
Agreement and a supporter of absurdities such as ''alimentary
sovereignty'' and maintaining telecommunications and other ''strategic''
industries and services under the control of the government.
Third in
the contest is, in a way, the great revelation of this campaign:
young lawyer Otto Guevara, the charismatic leader of the Libertarian
Movement, who began with barely 3 percent of the voters' support
and now has 12 percent. Some analysts believe that it is even
possible that between now and election day, Guevara will elbow
out Solís and become the country's second electoral force.
It could happen; during Guevara's stints in Congress the people
always selected him as the most efficient and valuable legislator.
It was exactly
20 years ago that Arias assumed the presidency for the first time.
It fell upon him to govern between 1986 and 1990 -- during the
difficult and thrilling finale of the Cold War -- and he did so
with consummate skill, helping to evict the Soviet and Cuban satellites
from his neighborhood.
With great
diplomatic instinct, and against Washington's policy, he managed
to rally the other Central American presidents behind his efforts
for peace in the region, shrewdly leading the Sandinistas to the
electoral slaughterhouse in 1990, when Violeta Chamorro and Virgilio
Godoy gave the coup de grce to Daniel Ortega's dictatorship. In
1987, the Swedes awarded Arias the Nobel Peace Prize, making him
the most prominent political figure in Latin America at the time.
In those
years, after the end of the dictatorships of Noriega in Panama
and Ortega in Nicaragua, and after the defeat of the Salvadoran
guerrillas, the isthmus appeared to enter into a period of maturity
and consolidation of democracy, but things didn't turn out that
way. Manipulated by the Castro-Chávez axis, now joined
by Evo Morales of Bolivia, the zone can enter a new period of
crisis.
In Nicaragua,
it is possible that, with the liberals fragmented, Daniel Ortega
might return to power. And in El Salvador we cannot rule out that,
despite the good successive administrations of four presidents
from the ARENA party and despite the enormous popularity of current
President Antonio Elías Saca, Chávez's petrodollars
will buy victory for Shafik Handal, an unrepentant communist in
the toughest Stalinist mold.
This landscape
could darken even more if Andrés Manuel López Obrador
wins the presidential election in Mexico and installs a government
mired in the antique collectivist revolutionary discourse of the
1930s and '40s.
This means
that Arias will not enjoy a quiet second term. He will govern
amid a rough neopopulist groundswell that's dominated internationally
by authoritarian tendencies; he'll face enemies abroad who will
stir his compatriots to try to prevent -- through social disorder
-- the opening and changes that the Costa Rican state needs to
finally become a developed nation.
I suppose
that Arias' objective at this new stage is precisely the objective
the enemies of common sense want to deny him: the modernization
of Costa Rica within the formula the Chileans have tried out with
growing success. That is to say, to achieve prosperity by encouraging
savings, attracting foreign investments and transfers of leading
technologies, stimulating the market and education, designing
sensible public policies, establishing clear rules, guaranteeing
macroeconomic stability and maintaining good relations with the
First World, particularly with the United States, Costa Rica's
principal trade partner.
Following
Chile's path
In reality,
Costa Rica has a paved road for its passage into the First World.
It is a deeply democratic and educated society with tolerable
levels of inequality and a political class that's open to the
quest for consensus. What does it need to take the first step?
Undoubtedly, a better understanding of how wealth is created or
wasted and a clearer comprehension of the role assigned to the
state and of the best role for the civilian society.
If Arias
manages the miracle of starting the trek in that direction --
following the path of the Chileans -- he will deserve a second
Nobel Prize.
