RICO’s DIGEST – The original warning was: “Beware of the Ides of March” by an augur to Julius Caesar – paraphrased by Plutarch in Parallel Lives and William Shakespeare in one of his dramas – before entering the Senate and being stabbed to death by a gang of Republican conspirators, on March 15, 44 BC
“Caesar found the seer and laughing told him: “The Ides of March have already arrived”; To which he replied compassionately: “Yes, but they are not finished yet.”
We are no longer in Rome – where politics was invented – nor do we settle disputes with knives, but the phrase is valid in terms of the care that any ruler must take when assuming a mandate.
Today, the country has new legislators, and in eight days a new President and a singular event will occur – which interpreted in the light of symbols – could mark a radical change in national politics.
The President will receive the sash from the hands of his counterpart in the Legislative Assembly, Rodrigo Arias Sanchez, and the past and the future will come together; on the one hand, a representative of the oldest and most powerful party, on the other the “outsider” who defeated the entire establishment in force.
It will be another of the most visible effects of the pandemic, which manifested itself first in health, then in the economy, and will metastasize throughout the social fabric.
This could mean a turn, a historical pivot, the nation’s entry into the 21st century and the consolidation of a change in political structures that began back in 2000 with the breakdown of bipartisanship.
If there were a power vacuum in the government, the Legislative Assembly (Congress) would undoubtedly occupy that space, and given the particular makeup of this parliament – conservative as few have seen – it would take the reins and draw the road map.
To prevent the executive from being only an executor of legislative provisions, the government should show strong leadership with a kind of “proconsul“, who negotiates with power and decision before the legislators.
The Ides of May will be on the 15th and – according to the early Roman calendar – it was a date consecrated to the god of war, Mars, and conducive to good news, with the exception of the unfortunate one that befell Julius Caesar.
The good news would be a truce between the Tyrians and the Trojans, to finally come out of a few years of darkness and have a national rebirth, and a white mantle of harmony covers Costa Rica.
This commentary is translated and adapted from Digital506.com. Read the Spanish version here.
