QCOSTARICA — The Legislative Assembly is hostile and obstructive and President Rodrigo Chaves will not keep quiet about it. For the president, high-level and direct negotiations should prevail in Costa Rica, instead of the haggling that, according to him, some legislators promote.
A few months to completing two years in office, Chaves is confident that his direct, frank and even confrontational style can make its way, generating the political maturity necessary to understand that public debate must be “clear, tough and knee-deep,” is necessary, as happens in other countries with high negotiation practices.
On the other hand, Chaves maintains that Costa Rica is an economic leader among OECD countries and ensures that citizens can sleep peacefully without worrying about the dollar or the deficit.
Although he recognizes that there is still much to do, he is confident that the country will continue to grow and generate job opportunities.
Regarding security, the president warns about the need to imprison drug traffickers and sicarios (hitmen), changing the laws to prevent them from being free from one day to the next. This last challenge falls on Congress.
In an interview with La Republica, Chaves shares his opinions.
How do you perceive the relationship with the Legislative Assembly?
It is a hostile, obstructive Legislative Assembly that has only approved three laws to the government and the two respective budgets. We talk here about eurobonds, a benemeritazgo and other small laws.
The Legislative Assembly has spent a great deal of time creating investigative commissions for them to look at.
Quoting the State of the Nation in its most recent report: The combination of a style of conducting government affairs based on the antagonism of the Executive Branch, with the Legislature, the Judiciary and other social actors, generates negative effects in matters of legislative productivity, in addition to limiting public policy, what do you think?
What I think is that the State of the Nation lacks respect for Congress, because in reality what they are saying is that, since Rodrigo Chaves is direct, confrontational and frank, they do not have the political maturity to know what is best for him. to the country, instead of: I don’t like the way Chaves talks to me.
If they told me I cannot interview or work with him because he sees me as ugly again, I would feel insulted, because it is not clear about the mission that corresponds to us, nor to fulfill the Costa Ricans.
Politics is not about being liked, about playing cards while we define the future of the country.
If you had a more conciliatory tone, do you think you would get more out of the Congress?
We have been extremely conciliatory, we started off very well by talking, but in Costa Rica what high-level negotiation is is confused with haggling. I do not haggle, nor will I ever do so, give me this little thing here and I will give you this other thing and that is what some legislators want.
I invited the legislators to negotiate the security agenda for nine months, but they did not come, they did not invite me.
That difference is important in the political transformation that as part of my legacy I want to, when I leave, that these positions are not for whims and sensitized egos because they saw me ugly again.
The first big fight with the deputies was a year ago with the budget, when I said that there were eight irresponsible legislators, I did it so that they would stop distributing public resources regardless of the macroeconomic stability of the country.
In other countries the political debate, the political conversations are clear, hard and knee-deep, but not here. Does the different style justify sitting on the cookie and saying that because I don’t like the style I’m not going to move forward?
The mayoral elections are in February, how much does it affect the government in power?
I would have loved it if instead of an election of mayors there was a mid-term election of legislators, as Nayib Bukele had in El Salvador, as Javier Milei is going to have in Argentina, so that the election in Congress becomes a referendum of the work of the government. That would be wonderful, so that the Costa Rican people would have the possibility of supporting the government or not, with more or fewer deputies for its management.
Now, to answer you, mayoral elections do affect government management.
Consistency is required and I ask God to remain consistent.
Moving on to the economic level and other issues, one of your main promises was to make life less expensive in Costa Rica. Do you feel satisfied?
We have made life cheaper for Costa Ricans; In fact, we are the only OECD country where inflation has fallen in 2023, especially in food and energy; However, this does not mean that Costa Rica is cheap, but rather that prices have already stopped growing and we also managed to make them fall a little.
The Costa Rican consumer has not had a confidence index as high as the one experienced this Christmas since 2011.
What have been the actions carried out by the government in economic matters that allow these positive numbers?
We controlled spending with fiscal discipline, we brought in billions of dollars in foreign direct investment, we broke bottlenecks such as unnecessary bureaucracy and paperwork, we removed some monopolies, we invested in infrastructure and generated trust that led us to upgrade our ethical debt rating. .
On the other hand, the Central Bank has been lowering interest rates and we managed to stop the accelerated depreciation of the dollar exchange rate that was going to reach ¢1 thousand last year.
Another fundamental action was to improve the quality of public spending and, in terms of unemployment, we dropped from 13.6% to 7.7% with a reduction of half, in addition to an improvement in the quality of employment with a decrease in informality. and underemployment.
In recent governments, the usual thing has been for legislatorss to stop public spending when reviewing the budget, while under their mandate the roles were reversed. They want to spend more and you contain public spending, and for that you receive criticism. This is the case of citizen security. Is Rodrigo Chaves getting out of hand in his desire to apply fiscal discipline?
No never. This is a good habit. Fiscal discipline is that, it is discipline, it is spending within the budgets that one can spend. Eating well, exercising, sleeping well are activities that work with discipline.
What the legislators want to do is project certain things politically, such as, for example, saying “we take away the VAT from the OIJ”, when in reality this situation rather affects the institution, since suppliers cannot credit 13% of the tax. and now they raised the prices for the institution. This chapter, for example, denotes populism, as does the re-stamping they made to the exclusion from the gray list.
What the legislators do not want is for us to spend in high-quality areas, to spend on small things that they can reap politically.
Taking into account what you point out and in times of serious citizen security problems, how can you understand then that the government opposes giving more resources to the police and that the deputies, on their own, add ¢20 billion to the budget? that the Executive Branch had already defined?
If one could, with money, eliminate drug trafficking and organized crime, the United States would not have homicides, but today, that country has cities and neighborhoods where violence is very high. It doesn’t fix it with money.
The legislators, without understanding the true cause or without wanting to act on the true causes, only say “let’s throw money at the problem” and that is not the case.
The problem is that Costa Rica, starting in 1998 during the government of José María Figueres Olsen and the governments that followed, especially during the administrations of Laura Chinchilla and Luis Guillermo Solís, began to become soft and generous with criminals and relaxed the laws. At the same time, they gave more benefits in execution of sentences and did not use a person’s criminal record in considering preventive detention (remand), because it was considered an injustice to judge someone for what he did in the past. In other words, that is the true cause of the problem and not necessarily the lack of money.
You ask me if more money would help? The answer is yes, but the real issue is to fix the legal framework to put in jail those who are at war and killing themselves over drugs and not only so that they do not kill, but also so that they do not get killed, since a juvenile hitman after murdering someone he also becomes a target of the rival gang; So, the only way to avoid this cycle of destruction is to put these people in jail. What does it take to put someone in jail? Laws that allow it and a Judicial Branch that executes them.
Can it be said that a strong hand in security matters is required to solve the problem?
It is putting the firmness that is needed in the face of the challenge of the moment.
If you could separate the Russian and Ukrainian armies, the war would end. If you can separate the criminal gangs that are killing for control of the territory, the war and homicides would end.
The only way to do it is to put the hitmen in prison, but here it is very difficult to put someone in prison and keep them there.
Back to the economic issue, there are sectors such as exporters and tourism that question a cheap dollar exchange rate, what do you think?
On Thursday, the Cámara de Exportadores (Chamber of Exporters) reported an increase in exports of 17%, while the previous month was the best November in history for the tourism sector; Likewise, the largest number of seats reserved for the high season is reported since records have been recorded, so it seems to me that the sectors continue to gain weight here.
Those that are losing are the banks that bet against the colon, but they are not going to say it publicly, although they can put pressure on them for different reasons.
Public employees have their salaries frozen because the debt exceeds 60% of GDP in accordance with the fiscal rule. Do you think that in 2025 there will be a change in this guideline?
I want to reduce the debt from 60% in relation to GDP, not only to improve the income of civil servants, but also to amortize the country’s mortgage.
Our goal is to have Costa Rica with investment grade, so that the cost of debt, not just the amount of debt in relation to GDP, is less onerous, so that we can invest more in infrastructure and not so much in interests.
Now, reversing the debt burden below 60% of GDP is possible by 2025 and we are fighting for it.
