Costa Rica - Political Parties
Costa Rican politics operate within a multiparty system in which the National Liberation Party (Partido Liberacion Nacional- PLN) had been dominant since the 1948 election. Essentially social democratic in its philosophy and goals, the party generally managed to capture a majority of the seats in the Legislative Assembly. Never strong enough to oppose the PLN independently, the other parties have had to rely on coalition tactics in their bids for national office. Administrations thus have swung from moderately conservative to moderately progressive orientations, and control of the government's executive branch has, with one exception, alternated from election to election between the PLN and the expedient alliances. A third political force - an assortment of Marxist parties - has been tolerated within the system but has never achieved significant gains in the electoral process.
Over the long term the PLN attracted a supportive following from the entire social spectrum. It emphasizes state-guided economic development working together with private initiative. The social programs that the party has been able to enact when it captured executive authority at the polls generally had not been eliminated or replaced when an opposition group attained control of the government.
Overall, Costa Rican governments have swung from moderately conservative to moderately progressive as the PLN and various anti-PLN coalitions have tended to alternate control of the presidency. This pattern was broken in 1974 and 1986, when a PLN candidate succeeded a PLN incumbent.
Deputies representing five parties were elected to the Legislative Assembly in 2002. Eleven of the 57 Legislative Assembly Deputies broke away and either formed new parties or declared themselves independent.
During the 2002 election, no leftist party obtained a seat in the Legislative Assembly. The far-left had been almost invisible since. Due to personal ambitions, party leaders squandered opportunities for growth by engaging in divisive battles for control, allowing other political parties with center-left characteristics such as the PAC and Patriotic Union to draw support away from the left,s more traditional base.
In 2004, leftist groups began organizing an alliance (the IU), which consisted of a coalition of five parties. The IU was a radical left coalition that opposed CAFTA-DR, fiscal reform, labor flexibility, and privatization of state-owned institutions (telecommunications, insurance, social security, and utilities).
There were two other principal leftist parties. Former Legislative Assembly Deputy (1998-2002) for the leftist Democratic Force Jose Merino founded Broad Front in 2004. Labor unions, environmentalists, and feminists constituted this group. Finally, the Democratic Force, founded in 1992, was still in existence.
By 2005 there were at least nine parties and three independent legislators struggling to function within a legislative structure that traditionally had only two parties. Political analysts widely refer to these splits as the "atomization" of the Legislative Assembly and the traditional two-party system. The Legislative Assembly was widely viewed as unable to get anything done. While some of the problem was institutional (poorly designed rules that procedurally savvy minority parties exploit fully), political analysts opined that the Assembly's main problem was a lack of leadership that can forge consensus. Currently, in their opinion, the Assembly was an assortment of at least a dozen different groups that were unaccountable to any party or electorate and that were mainly focused on posturing for the upcoming 2006 general election. Democratic Force and Popular Vanguard (part of the IU) were registered to participate in the national February 2006 elections. Broad Front was registered to run candidates in the provincial elections. Democratic Force was the only leftist party with any chance of winning a Legislative Assembly seat in the 2006 elections.
In addition to the two traditional political parties, five new national parties registered to participate in the 2006 elections. Eleven new provincial and thirteen new cantonal (local) parties were also registered. The five new national parties, which are eligible to run presidential, legislative, and local government candidates are: Nationalist Democratic Alliance (headed by Jose Miguel Villalobos, a former PUSC minister); Homeland First (headed by Juan Jose Vargas, a former Citizens, Action Party (PAC) legislator who left the party and is now an independent in the Legislative Assembly); National Union (headed by the former human rights Ombudsman and PUSC party member, Jose Manuel Echandi); Union for Change (headed by Antonio Alvarez-Desanti, a former PLN minister and president of the Legislative Assembly); and Patriotic Union (headed by Jose Miguel Corrales, current independent legislator and former PLN presidential candidate (1998) and legislator).
During July 2005, four smaller political groups with little previous electoral appeal added their support to the GANA coalition. GANA expected to finalize an agreement with the Broad Front Party (socialist) and hopes to reach agreement with the National Integration Party (center right). GANA's success would depend on its ability to reach out to Union for Change (center-right), National Union (center-right), and the PAC (center-left). In Montenegro,s view, if these parties continued working separately then the "tired of politics as usual" vote will be too diluted to counter the traditional PLN and PUSC bases of support. Failure to form alliances would result in an Assembly as fractured as the current one or worse.
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