What are left and working class organizations doing?
By Central Committee of the PRT – Costa Rica
Little by little the mask of Chaves is beginning to fall. The current president, who sought to place himself before public opinion as an anti-corruption champion, a “strong man” who came to put an end to all the crooks, has been losing popularity because of the blunders, but also because of the proposals he has made in the first months at the head of the executive branch.
In his speech for the first 100 days of his administration, he announced that he would push for the sale, i.e., the privatization of the Banco de Costa Rica (BCR) and half of the National Insurance Institute (INS), which has caused uneasiness in many sectors of the population, including the BCR’s manager, Both the Bank’s authorities and the union have denounced that it would be a lousy business to sell the Bank and that it would not really help much to improve the country’s debt, which is the argument that Chaves is using to push for the sale.
On the other hand, the Fourth Chamber has condemned the closure of Parque Viva as an indirect attack on freedom of expression. Chaves’ lack of interest in facing the vertiginous increase in the cost of living has also become evident, which from his World Bank (WB) technocrat viewpoint he sees as a matter to be regulated by the market.
In the parliamentary field, a permanent confrontation has been generated with the other fractions of the Legislative Assembly, which have already applied two law stamps, related to cuts that the government intended to make, arguing the application of the tax rule, for indispensable services such as, for example, the firefighters and the 911 service; the blunders with the awarding of the new vehicle technical inspection company to the German company Dekra, with the promise that the re-inspection would not be charged, which ended up being false, rather the company stated that if more than two failures were presented, it would charge the entire fee again.
Add to this the cost of the marchamo for the end of the year; the millionaire losses in the complementary pension systems; the refusal to increase the salary of the CCSS workers and the dismissal of the former head of the institution for daring to push for such an increase. All this and more has contributed to the fact that, according to the latest survey of the Center for Research and Political Studies (CIEP) of the University of Costa Rica (UCR), the evaluation of Chaves’ administration as good or very good has gone from 79% in August of this year to 68%, now in November. Although it is still a high percentage of approval, it is clear that the positive evaluations of Chaves have fallen vertiginously.
But beyond what the polls may say, what is important is that an important inter-bourgeois conflict is worsening, a growing clash between the different business fractions that have governed this country with a basic consensus for the last 50 years and Chaves’ attempts to favor the business groups he exclusively represents. This is what explains, basically, the multiple clashes in the Legislative Assembly, where the government does not have a majority, as well as the slap on the wrist applied by the Fourth Chamber, with the objective of reminding it of the rules of the game of the bourgeois government apparatus.
Where does Chaves come from?
Chaves is a World Bank (WB) technocrat who worked for 27 years in Indonesia for that international financial organization, applying privatization policies and favoring large corporations, such as oil palm companies, which deforested hundreds of thousands of hectares of forests and massively displaced the indigenous population, in order to increase the amount of palm oil by thousands of tons. It also favors mining companies, which, as is well known, are among the most dangerous companies for the ecosystems where they are installed and for the populations living in the area.
After fleeing from the World Bank, to avoid dismissal due to sexual harassment allegations against him, Chaves has a brief period at the Ministry of Finance, replacing Rocio Aguilar, who resigned after Carlos Alvarado sanctioned her for a month. From that short term in office, it was quite clear which would be the sign of the new government: during his term as Minister of Finance, Chaves proposed to increase the tax on public employees earning more than 500 thousand colones, proposed to allocate the surplus of public institutions to pay debt and opposed, with a public letter sent to the president, to exclude municipalities from the tax rule.
The government of Chaves
It was clear that Chaves would try to apply the tax rule to the letter, that his main concern would be to pay the debt, that he would promote privatizations and that he would try to unload all the weight of the crisis on the working class, without touching the interests of the big capitals, no matter who loudly he announced that he would put tax evaders under control or that he would put an end to luxury salaries and pensions, which he has never really promoted, nor will he do.
However, what was not so clear, until after the elections, was that he would so directly and blatantly favor the sectors that financed him in the electoral campaign.
Chaves has promoted policies that directly benefit importers, in general, but the issue of favoring rice importers, and policies against local rice producers, has been particularly contentious.
The sale of the BCR will clearly favor Jack Loeb, a businessman linked to the Prival Group, dedicated to investment banking and brokerage. He is one of the main campaign financiers, who contributed more than ₡44 million to the opaque Costa Rica Prospera trust, which a report of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) has already pointed out as one of two parallel structures of the Chaves campaign that formed a “dark financing scheme”. Loeb is also pointed out as part of the second parallel structure, orchestrated to support the campaign of the current pro-government congressman Julio Ubaldo “Waldo” Agüero. According to the TSE, Sofía Agüero, daughter of the legislator, received $195 thousand from Loeb (₡126,826,050 to ₡650.39 a dollar). It is to be expected that the advisor appointed to manage the BCR privatization process is Loeb himself or some official close to the banker.
Other businessmen benefited by Chaves are Calixto Chaves Zamora and his family, who control the Sociedad Portuaria Caldera; also some bus businessmen, such as Esteban Ramírez Biolley -recently appointed as director of the CTP- who contributed, according to the last report of the TSE, a total of ₡16 million, through the mechanism of purchasing debt bonds.
What to do in response to this government?
To place ourselves in front of the problem of what we, the leftist and popular organizations in Costa Rica, should do to confront the Chaves government, we must take into account the international context, we highlight the economic crisis that does not end, but rather worsens, and the increase in social polarization and geopolitical tensions resulting from the war in Ukraine, as well as the still present effects of the Pandemic.
In a previous document, we stated that, given the circumstances outlined above, there are conditions for a leap in the consciousness of the popular masses, who can clearly see problems such as the selfishness of the big bourgeoisie that only thinks of saving its profits. It is also seen with greater clarity, since the virus is a huge public health problem, that the artificial barriers, called borders, imposed by the bourgeoisie on the working class, make no sense. It can also be seen more clearly that without the work of the working class, the big bourgeoisie cannot guarantee its profits, nor the stable functioning of the system.
However, there also arises the danger of increasingly authoritarian governments, the big bourgeoisie tries to use the control of the political apparatus to unload the whole weight of the crisis on the working class, which probably implies, in view of the potentially explosive situation, a drift towards increasingly authoritarian, even Bonapartist or fascist governments. There is also the danger that, in desperation, large contingents of the working class will end up working, for extortion or mere survival, for the big organized drug mafias.
The Chavez government is a severe attempt to impose a thorough neo-liberal austerity with Bonapartist methods, protected from the start with “populist” measures, a lukewarm “welfare” and a resurgence of militarization, which we think will not have much leeway, due to the process of acute and growing crisis of capitalism.
The only viable way out of the crisis is to build spaces of self-organization of the working class, in each country and seeking regional and international coordination. Only through the independent and militant organization of the working class can we confront this crisis in its multiple dimensions: ecological, economic, political, gender and health. Building spaces of unity of the workers, together with other oppressed and excluded social sectors is fundamental.
It is urgent to regroup the popular movement as a whole in its diversity: union, communal, peasant, feminist, environmental, indigenous, and the struggle for housing. The greatest evil we suffer from is the disintegration, the divisionism, prevailing within the popular movement.
That is why we propose to hold a National Assembly to create a Unitary Front of the People (FUP), a single coordination, a workers’ and popular united front that integrates all the organizations that are determined to wage a frontal struggle against this government that is becoming increasingly authoritarian. In that National Assembly, to promote a Plan of Struggle, which incorporates the most heartfelt slogans of the sectors. We advance the following:
- Immediate freezing of prices of the basic food basket to alleviate the impact of inflation.
- Increase to the base of minimum wages, based on real inflation, for both the public and private sectors, without exclusions.
- No to the privatization or sale of State assets, neither the BCR, nor the health services, nor the National Insurance Institute.
- Defense of the constitutionally established budget for public education.
- Public works and decent housing plan to attack unemployment, with full labor guarantees for employees.
- Defense of the IVM pension system and Health Insurance. Defense of social security, the INS and the CCSS. Immediate payment of all debts owed by the State to the Fund to strengthen health services and reduce waiting lists.
- Radical tax reform, so that big businessmen, tax evaders and eluders pay contributions according to their profits, and the burden of taxes on the working people is alleviated.
If we manage to unite even one sector of the sectors in the frontal struggle against the government, it would be the beginning, an important step in the construction of the organization we need to confront the Chaves government and its attempts to unload the crisis on the backs of the working class.
No trust in the rich and their organizations
Fight to build people’s power!
Only the people save the people!
Central Committee
Partido Revolucionario de las y los Trabajadores