Q COSTARICA — The decision of opposition parties, the Frente Amplio (FA) and Partido Liberiación Nacional (PLN), to oppose the opening of the electricity market through the market harmonization initiative (Ley de Armonización del Sistema Eléctrico Nacional) led President Laura Fernández to accuse the legislators of both parties of being communists.
Referring to this issue, Fernández also called the opposition legislators “vagrants,” while also stating that José María Villalta, head of the FA’s congressional bloc, is actually the leader of the PLN.
At the same time, a visibly annoyed Fernández asserted that “I hope they disappear” and indicated that the PLN has committed political fraud against the voters and the Costa Rican people.
“You already know what communism and the left do to countries; they destroy everything in their path. You saw the examples of Venezuela and Cuba. In this discussion, the Frente Amplio and Liberación Nacional, thank God, have finally shown their true colors. What we have here is a bunch of communists—listen carefully—people who want to lead Costa Rica to the blackouts of Cuba or to what is, unfortunately, Venezuela, because communists destroy everything in their path, Costa Ricans, everything. The effort we make to generate employment, to attract companies, to open free trade zones,” said Fernández during the weekly press conference on Wednesday.
For the president, the approval of this initiative is fundamental for Costa Rica to generate the energy the country needs to meet future demand and thus guarantee foreign direct investment.
The Ley de Armonización del Sistema Eléctrico Nacional, in essence, establishes the Ente Coordinador del Sistema Eléctrico Nacional (ECOSEN)—National Electric System Coordinating Entity—to assume the administration and planning functions currently operated by the State utility, the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE), allowing private companies to generate all the energy they want to sell within or outside the country to the regional market, instead of depending on purchase contracts with ICE.
The plan promoted by the Executive Branch seeks to break the monopoly and modernize the sector, aiming for greater efficiency and the promise of competitive rates through competition among public, private, and mixed actors.
In that sense, ICE would cease to be a planner and become a competitor in the national market.
“How can you imagine my pain when we see that the country isn’t prepared with the sufficient electrical capacity that Costa Rica needs to face the next 25 years? And why doesn’t ICE make that investment? Because it’s a very large investment. (…) Today, there are companies that want to come to the country to open industries that could go to Limón, to the southern zone, to Puntarenas, but since our country doesn’t have enough energy, they decide to go to another place in the region. The rest of the countries in the region are taking off: El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Panama, while we Costa Ricans have been discussing this for, do you know how many years? 23 years,” said Fernández.
On Tuesday, the bill only garnered votes in favor (27) from the ruling party’s Pueblo Soberano bloc; the outlook for its final approval is complex.
A report from the Legislative Technical Services confirmed that modifying the powers of autonomous institutions of the State requires a qualified majority, 38 affirmative votes (two-thirds of the Plenary) in the second and final debate.
Thus, for the bill to pass into law requires votes from the opposition, mainly the Frente Amplio and PLN, whose 24 legislators voted against the bill on Tuesday and who maintain their total rejection, arguing risks of privatization and weakening of the solidarity model of ICE.
The current 57-member legislative group is made up of 31 legislators from the ruling party, the Partido Pueblo Soberano (PPSO), 17 from the PLN, 7 from the Frente Amplio, one from the Coalicion Agenda Ciudadana (CAC), and one from the Partido Unidad Social Cristiana (PUSC).