Chaves arrived at the Legislative Assembly on May 2 to fulfill the annual constitutional duty of leaders to render account of his work. He dedicated his almost hour-long speech to listing the achievements of his administration in its first 12 months and asserted that the country is substantially better off today than it was a year ago.

As usual since his proselytizing campaign, he used confrontational language and reiterated his fight to eliminate the privileges received by some interest groups that before directed policies for their own benefit and not in favor of the people. Likewise, he spoke out against the media that are adverse to him.

The Costa Rican head of state praised the country’s economic reactivation in the last year, the decrease in unemployment, the reduction in the cost of living and the inclusion of 75 new products in the basic basket —where only one percent of the tax is paid in added value—, as well as the increase in foreign investment, among many others.

In a first reaction, the opposition party bench in Parliament agreed that the rendering of accounts was superficial on the aforementioned proposals, since it neglected to explain how it will manage to solve the problems that affect the nation, including the main one, the crime wave, plus social inequality and poverty.

The leader of the bench of the Progressive Liberal Party, Eliécer Feinzaig, assured that Chaves described the country that he would like to project to maintain his level of popularity and make the population believe that things are better, but —he pointed out— the report has important gaps and data does not correspond to reality.

The deputy of the Christian Social Unity Party Vanessa Castro described the president’s speech as a verbal illusion, since she showed a panorama where someone else’s dress is put on many issues and leads us to deception. “I ask people if they feel that improvement that he talked about,” she pointed out. In his response speech, the president of the Legislative Assembly, Rodrigo Arias, was critical of Chaves’s words, arguing that Costa Rica’s problems are complex and cannot be solved with simple recipes, but rather require technical support and audacity policy.

“The boat in which we all sail is on the high seas. The port can be seen far away and, meanwhile, the cracks in our ship can be felt in all areas of public service. We risk shipwrecking,” Arias warned.

(Taken from Orbe)