QCOSTARICA (iNews.co.cr) The simmering clash between lawmaker Otton Solis and President Solis burst into flame again this week when the legislator made the most furious attack yet. The ignition point was the remark by Vice President Daniel Soley that the President might name current Procuradura General Ana Lorena Brenes to a foreign ambassador post. (The Procuradura General is the state’s attorney)
There has been some friction between the Casa Presidencial and Brenes and the lawmaker took reports of a deal as a pro quid pro to silence Brenes. If the report proves true, he charged, “to buy silence with posts is an act of detestable corruption.”
Otton Solis is founder of the Citizen Action Party (PAC) and considers himself the conscience of the party. This has repeatedly put him at odds with fellow congressmen in the past and currently as well and President Solis’s realpolitik way of going about things rubs the puritanical congressman the wrong way.
This time, Solis included Soley in his attacks, saying that the former National Liberation party (PLN) member “continues to be a Liberationist right to his entrails.” For the lawmaker, Liberation represents corruption and this was intended as a crushing criticism. He can be prickly as a porcupine.
It was Soley who brought up the subject of a possible appointment abroad for Brenes, duly published in La Nacion. When he heard of it, Solis erupted like one of the country’s volcanos but cooled down a bit and began to have doubts that the report was true.
“I don’t believe it’s true,” the legislator said, “To stain the role of the head of the Procuraduría and offering of this type of post isn’t appropriate for PAC. Daniel Soley is mistaken — he’s mistaking his party. In the PAC, we consider this corruption.”
Although such political horse-trading is considered fair practice in most countries, Solis considers it dirty pool — as he does a trade of votes for PAC’s unused consultant post in congress given to Unity party. “When National Liberation or Unity did it, it was considered by PAC as corruption. It still is corruption,” declared Solis.
(President Solis was speedy in putting distance between himself and the Soley proposal, saying Wenesday that he had no intention of enticing Ramos away from her job and pointing out that he was in China when the whole tempest blew up.)
But this time, Solis is not a single voice crying in the wilderness but his allies are all in the opposition, such as Social Christian Unity (PUSC) figure Rosibel Ramos and Liberatian Movement leader Otto Guevara. Ramos pointedly accused Soley of proposing tactics typically “taken by the left.”
Frente Amplio leader Gerardo Vargas also considered the Soley proposal “strange.” Lawmaker Vargas asked, “I ask myself, why is the President wanting to send her abroad when she was elected to such an important post?”
But lawmaker Solis was not giving up in his relentless criticism, calling Wednesday for Soley’s resignation as Vice President.
Article by iNews.co.cr, with editing by the Q.
Note to reader, Ottón Solís and Luis Guillermo Solís are not related.
