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Candidate Selection in Costa Rica
by
Michelle M. Taylor-Robinson
Department of Political Science 4348-TAMU
Texas A&M University College Station, TX 77843-4348
(979) 845-2674 [email protected]
Paper prepared for the XXIII international congress of the Latin American Studies Association, Washington, D.C. September 6-8, 2001. I wish to thank Maria Escobar-Lemmon, Nehemia Geva, and Doug Thornton for helpful suggestions on this paper and for providing public opinion data. Of course any errors in the paper are my own. Support for the legislative data comes from NSF Grant #Y460895.
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Candidate Selection in Costa Rica
Abstract
The candidate selection procedures used by the major parties in Costa Rica would lead us to expect that deputies would support the president's policy agenda in the Legislative Assembly. Deputy lists are determined by party national assemblies where the presidential candidate has great influence over the delegates, and thus many deputies may consider the presidential candidate responsible for getting them their seat in the Assembly. However, because the president cannot be reelected, and deputies cannot be immediately reelected, this link that should produce executive-legislative cooperation is severed. Deputies look to the new presidential candidate of their party as the key to appointive positions in the executive branch and thus their chance to continue their political career. Evidence is presented from the legislative record of President José María Figueres (1994-98) showing that from the beginning of the term deputies from the president's party did not consistently help the President to implement his legislative agenda.
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Candidate Selection in Costa Rica
To whom do candidates owe their nomination? This is an important question because
those who select candidates typically can expect loyalty in return for their beneficence. Thus,
who selects candidates can have a major impact on the policy outputs of government and on the
relationship that develops between elected officials and the people of a country.
In this paper I explore candidate selection procedures in Costa Rica's major parties,
National Liberation (PLN) and the United Social Christian Party (PUSC). As Latin America's
longest lasting democracy, and with what has come to be a stable two-party system, it would
appear that Costa Rica's major parties are doing something right with how they select their
candidates for national office. Voters keep voting for these parties, and though their vote shares
have decreased in recent elections (see Table 1), they still clearly dominate the country's
elections, and even more so its elected offices. So then, who is doing something right? Who is
selecting the presidential candidates and lists for the Legislative Assembly which garner the vast
majority of the popular vote? In addition, what are the policy implications of these candidate
selection procedures, and what kind of relationship do they create between voters, elected
officials, and the major political parties?
(insert Table 1 about here)
The basic argument made is as follows: In both major parties in Costa Rica the party's
presidential candidate has significant influence on the selection of deputy candidates. Alone that
would be predicted to induce deputies to be loyal to the president once in office by supporting
the legislation the president proposes. However, prohibitions on reelection for both presidents
and deputies short-circuit this expected loyalty. Since deputies cannot be immediately reelected
to the Assembly, they look to their party's new presidential nominee for an appointed position in
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the executive branch. Presidents have many high level appointed positions to give out, and
deputies view attaching themselves to the new presidential candidate, and being rewarded with
one of these positions, as their best opportunity for continuing in politics. This need to link
themselves to the new presidential candidate can induce deputies to transfer their loyalty to their
new potential patron and cause them to not cooperate with the incumbent president. The
incumbent president, by contrast, lacks immediately useful carrots or sticks for inducing deputies
who he helped nominate to cooperate with his legislative program.
How Candidates Are Selected
Candidate selection procedures (CSPs) in Costa Rica are in part the result of formal rules
laid out in the Electoral Code. However, that is only part of the story as each major party has its
own rules and norms for selecting candidates.
Rules set by the national electoral code
Costa Rica has a unitary and centralized system of government, and this is reflected in an
electoral system that fills all local and national offices on the same day every four years. Voters
cast three ballots: one for a presidential candidate on a slate with two vice-presidential
candidates; a second for a slate of deputies to represent their province in the unicameral
Legislative Assembly;1 and a third for cantonal councils. Deputy slates are party-presented
closed-lists, with candidates' names listed on the ballot. Candidates for cantonal councils are
also presented as closed-list party slates, though candidate names are not listed on the ballots.
1 The Legislative Assembly has 57 members elected from the seven provinces. District magnitude (the number of deputies elected from a province) ranges from 4 to 21, and the effective district magnitude is eight (Taagepera and Shugart 1989: 136-7).
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Presidents cannot be reelected.2 Members of the Legislative Assembly must wait at least
one term before running again, and the reelection rate has been quite low -- 87% of deputies
elected since 1949 have only served one term, and only 3% have served three terms (Carey 1997:
206-7; Taylor 1992: 1069).
The Electoral Code also has provisions for candidate selection. Presidential candidates
are selected through party primaries. Parties also hold a series of conventions at the district,
canton, province, and national levels, with each lower level sending representatives to the
meeting at the next higher level. The party national convention determines the provincial slates
for deputy candidates (Electoral Code, Art.74).3
CSPs set by the PLN
The PLN was founded in 1951, growing out of one of the parties that won the 1948 civil
war.4 It won the presidency and a majority of seats in the Legislative Assembly in the 1953
elections, and until the 1980s was the dominant party in Costa Rican legislative politics.
According to the party's statutes, the PLN selects its candidates for executive and
legislative office via a presidential primary and a series of successive party conventions
respectively. Provincial assemblies are directed to present to the party's national assembly
nominees for deputy candidates in accordance with the recommendations of regional leaders
(Art.43). The party's national assembly is then instructed to elect deputy candidates in
accordance with the nominees presented by the provincial assemblies (Art.58).
2 The Constitution was amended in 1969 to prohibit reelection of presidents. Before that time a past president could run again after two terms had elapsed. 3 For the 2002 elections parties will choose deputy slates via open primaries, and both genders must receive an equal portion of the electable positions on party lists (Wilson 1998: 79; interview with Secretary General of the Supreme Elections Tribunal November 21, 2000). 4 See Yashar (1995: 76-88) for an in-depth exposition of the origins and development of the PLN.
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However, party leaders have always wanted to influence, if not control the process out
right. Toward that end, party leaders influence the selection of delegates to the national
convention. Some have described the process as outright manipulation, with national party
leaders selecting convention delegates in a top-down fashion, rather than the bottom-up flow of
input outlined in the electoral code (see Carey 1996: 88-93; Carey 1997: 211; Casas Zamora and
Briceño Fallas 1991: 325 and 337; Lehoucq 1997: 29, 49-50; Wilson 1998: 61). Regardless of
whether there is outright manipulation, convention delegates view it as in their interest to
cooperate with the candidate preferences of party leaders, particularly the party's presidential
candidates, because if the party wins the presidency many of these provincial-level party activists
hope to receive appointed positions in government. This is a realistic expectation because the
president has many appointments to make ranging from ministers, ambassadors and agency
presidents, to local policy chiefs and chauffeurs (Carey 1997: 212-3). In addition, before the
1990s party leaders had expanded the size of the party's national convention beyond the 10
delegates per province required by the Electoral Code. Seven delegates representing each of the
party's sectors (youth, women, labor) were created. Again, the means by which these sectoral
delegates were chosen was reputed to be strongly influenced by national party leaders, and many
of these extra delegates would also have aspirations for appointive government posts that would
give them an incentive to follow the nomination preferences of the party's presidential candidate.
This practice was ended in 1992 after the Supreme Elections Tribunal declared it illegal.
Casas Zamora and Briceño Fallas (1991: 338) present a quote from an interview with a
PLN party leader describing what the party looks for in deputy candidates for the provinces:
La importancia de la lealtad del candidato a diputado varía segun sea el puesto que se le vaya a dar. Normalmente lo que se busca en la designación de quienes encabezan las provincias es que sean figuras que con su trayectoria se hayan vinculado intimamente con Liberación Nacional y casi independientemente de su
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lealtad al candidato si son líderes de peso se les escoge. Donde la lealtad llega hasta la sumisión es en el caso del resto de la lista. Los diputados que encabezan, por su condición de líderes nacionales, tienen cierto margen para enfrentarse abiertamente al Candidato a Presidente y mantenerse con cierta independencia frente a este. National party leaders have ample opportunity for influencing candidate selection due to
the rule that past presidents are members for life in the party's national leadership body. In
addition, the PLN was founded only 50 years ago, and until the late 1980s its top leadership was
made up of a small club of leaders who took part in the "revolutionary junta" of 1948-49 (Yashar
1995: 83-4).5 The result is that the party's founders, who were also its first several victorious
presidential candidates can play an extremely influential role in candidate selection.
In sum, who controls candidate selection in the PLN? Party members, voting in a
primary, select the presidential candidate and a national party convention selects deputy
candidates. The one exception to this rule is that the top four or five positions on the San José
slate (DM = 21) are reserved for the presidential candidate to fill.6 These deputies, who are often
well known people of national stature in the party, are expected to be a link between the
executive and the Legislative Assembly. Party leaders, and particularly the presidential
candidate, however, have a great deal of influence over candidate selection decisions made by
the national convention due to their potential ability to distribute patronage in the next
government and behind-the-scenes maneuvering. Nonetheless, they do not have complete
control. Some deputy aspirants who are known to be in conflict with the presidential candidate
do get on the slate.7
5 Oscar Arias (1986-90) was the first PLN presidential candidate who was not active in the civil war and the founding of the party. 6 This provision will continue in 2001 when the party moves to a system of closed-primaries to select deputy slates. 7 Though they are more likely to end up in "marginal" than "safe" positions on the party list.
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CSPs set by the PUSC
The PUSC was founded in 1982 from several parties which had formed coalitions in
opposition to the PLN in previous elections. Those coalitions won the presidency in 1958, 1966,
and 1978. Unlike the PLN which was united behind a social democratic model of development
until the 1980s debt crisis, the parties of the PUSC only have their opposition to the PLN in
common (Yashar 1995: 82). The PUSC includes a wide spectrum of parties from conservative
representatives of the coffee oligarchy on the right, to christian democrats who backed former
President Calderón Guardia (1940-44) and defectors from the PLN led by former President
Carazo Odio (1978-82) on the center-left. This history as a coalition of independent parties has
an impact on the party's candidate selection procedures and the goals of slate composition.
According to the party's statutes the party's national assembly designates the deputy
candidates (Art.21e). The candidates are to come from "popular consultations" held in every
canton, and the national assembly ratifies these results. The only exception is the five people at
the top of the San José list who are selected by the party's presidential candidate (Art.70).
The party's long-time leader, Rafael Angel Calderón Fournier (known as "Junior"), the
son of former President Rafael Angel Calderón Guardia, was the coalition's and then the party's
banner carrier in 1982 and 1986. Since 1988 a primary open to all party members has selected
the presidential candidate. Calderón Fournier was elected the party's presidential candidate in
1989, and in 1990 he won the presidential election.
The PUSC is still led by its founders and by the leaders of the parties that joined together
to form the PUSC. As such, the role of party leaders is somewhat different than in the PLN. In
an interview in 1998 a top party leader explained that party leaders still need to balance the
former parties when forming deputy slates. The former parties, and their adherents, still have a
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presence within the PUSC, and party leaders still feel it is important to be sure all former parties
are represented in electable positions on the party lists. This implies that it is accepted by the
party's national convention delegates that, for the good of maintaining party unity, national party
leaders should have final say over the composition of deputy slates.
In sum, deputy candidate selection in the PUSC leans toward elite selection by party
leaders. While the party's rank-and-file members select the presidential candidate, the choice is
limited by what candidates present themselves, and due to the party's youth these pre-candidates
are generally leaders of the former parties that coalesced to form the PUSC.
The Impact of Reelection Prohibitions8
CSPs in Costa Rica's two major parties would be expected to give party leaders,
particularly the presidential candidate if he wins the election, significant control over deputies.
The outward appearance of the series of party conventions to gather information for composing
deputy slates is very democratic. Still, party leaders, and particularly the presidential candidate
have a great deal of influence over who is selected, due to the promise of patronage positions in
the new administration, ticket balancing, or manipulation of the process.
However, there is a disconnect built into the system due to the prohibitions on reelection,
which should greatly limit the president's control over the deputies from his party. Costa Rican
presidents are lame ducks as soon as they take office. Thus, even if we were to view the
presidential candidate as the patron who single-handedly got the deputy aspirant an electable
position on the party list, once he becomes president he is not a patron who can continue to aid
his client with future political posts and elections. Deputies might still remain loyal to the
president out of a sense of obligation to the patron who helped them to become a deputy. They 8 This section and the next draw heavily on arguments presented in Carey (1997).
10
might also want to support the president's policy initiatives if the presidential candidate selected
deputy candidates who agreed with his campaign platform.9 However, a deputy who does not
support the president in the Assembly has little to fear from the incumbent president, because he
does not control the deputy's immediate political future.
This situation would be somewhat different if deputies could be immediately reelected to
the Assembly, and particularly if the president had control over the budget. If that were the case,
deputies might have an incentive to curry favor with the president to get pork barrel projects for
their district.10 However, deputies are not dependent on the president for pork because the
Assembly controls the budget.11 Presidents have few tools with which to sanction uncooperative
deputies, because they too want their party to win the next election, as that victory can be viewed
as a positive popular evaluation of their administration. If the president denies pork projects to a
deputy, the immediate sufferers are the people of the district, who will retaliate by voting against
the president's party.12 If the president and other party leaders sanction an uncooperative deputy
through the party's Ethics Tribunal the punishment typically only amounts to a slap on the hand,
that may bring notoriety to the deputy for standing up to the executive. The most extreme
9 We do not know if presidential candidates support deputy aspirants for their personal loyalty or their ideological/policy affinity. This was probably not a problem before the onset of the debt crisis, as Costa Ricans, especially members of the PLN, were generally united behind a social democratic ideology. However, the debt crisis called into question the continued feasibility of extensive government intervention in the economy, and has divided Costa Ricans, especially the PLN, into traditional social democratic versus more free-market oriented camps. 10 Though theory about personal vote seeking predicts deputies have little incentive to deliver goods in an attempt to win a personal vote when they are elected by closed-lists in large magnitude districts (Carey and Shugart 1997). Costa Rican deputies do bring pork to their district and attend to particularistic needs of constituents, but they do so as part of their party's overall effort to gain voter support so that the party will win the next election (Carey 1996; Taylor 1992). Deputies have an incentive to take part in this effort because if they want to continue in politics the only way they can do so is with an appointed post in the executive branch so they want to help their party win the next election. 11 The executive branch proposes a budget to the Assembly, but the president cannot veto the budget, so deputies can modify the budget directly to insert pork projects. For this reason the governing party gives itself a super-majority on the Finance committee, where budget amendments are typically made, and most deputies from the governing party are given a seat on this committee for one year during their term. 12 It is also not clear that the president has the legal right to impound funds that were approved in the budget (Carey 1997: 217).
11
sanction -- throwing the deputy out of the party -- is not really viable because the renegade
retains their Assembly seat, but the party loses a member of its caucus.13
The Impact of CSPs on the President's Ability to Pursue his Policy Agenda
"...the influence of the president over his or her copartisans wanes as the president's term progresses, whereas the influence of the party's next candidate waxes." (Carey 1997: 214)
Carey sums up what we would expect to be the relationship between the Costa Rican
president and deputies of his party. Deputies cannot be immediately reelected, and many, if not
most, want to continue in politics (Taylor 1992: 1064-5).14 Because the president cannot be
reelected, deputies weigh which of the presidential pre-candidates in their party is likely to be
victorious and join the candidate's camp as their best strategy for receiving an appointed position
in the executive branch in the next administration. The result is that when the presidential
candidate is selected (if not sooner), deputies may take their voting cues from their party's
presidential nominee, rather than from the current president.
Since the 1980s the PLN has been divided over neoliberal versus traditional social
democratic views about how best to pursue economic development (Yashar 1995: 87).15 There
are also ideological differences within the PUSC due to the diverse background of the anti-
liberación parties, though in general the PUSC is more united behind the policy of shrinking the
size of government. These differences of opinions within parties, which are often taken up by
aspiring presidential candidates, would lead us to expect that deputies in Costa Rica do not for
long vote in accordance with the policy initiatives of the president, despite the incumbent
13 This is typically a very high cost for the governing party in Costa Rica, as the president's party has rarely had more than a very slim majority in the Assembly, if that (see Table 1). 14 The main exception is older deputies who plan to retire after their term is done. 15 This battle has often been played out in the Legislative Assembly. See Clark (2001) and Wilson (1994) for an extensive discussion of how this situation has affected economic policy-making.
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president's role in securing their nomination to an electable position on the party's list. Instead,
they are driven by what is rational for their own political futures, which is to attach themselves to
the party's new presidential candidate, in the hopes of receiving a position in the executive
branch in the next administration.16
The Costa Rican case thus does not fit the expectation of Hypothesis 1 of this project
that, "As candidate selection is centralized, the more that party candidates will seek to pursue the
interests of party elites" (Taylor n.d.: 9). More constructively, the Costa Rican case prompts us
to consider the impact of reelection prohibitions and changing party elites on executive-
legislative relations.
Though nominations are heavily influenced by the party's presidential candidate, once in
office the president has few tools for controlling his party's members in the Legislative
Assembly. With the onset of economic restructuring in the 1980s, this has meant that the
president has often been unable to implement his policy goals.
Several aspects of Costa Rica's electoral, party, executive, and legislative institutions
come together to produce conflict between the legislature and the executive, even when the
president's party has a majority in the Legislative Assembly:
(1) The president cannot be reelected, so he has no future political posts to offer deputies in return for cooperation.
(2) Deputies cannot be immediately reelected, but most want to continue in politics, so they are rationally looking toward their future, which means allying themselves with their party's next presidential candidate, who will have political appointments to give out if the party wins the election.
(3) Since the 1980s, the PLN in particular has been divided over how to pursue economic development. For deputies this has meant that they may find that demonstrating support for the campaign promises of their party's candidate by how they vote in the Assembly puts them into conflict with the president.
16 This hope is a reasonable one since there are numerous top posts to be given out by the president and probably only 25-30 deputies (see Carey [1997] and Taylor [1992] for evidence of deputy success at continuing in politics). However, there is also great demand for these positions since deputies are not the only aspirants.
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(4) In addition to the different incentive structures the electoral system gives to presidents and deputies, the Constitution gives the president little autonomous policymaking power, while the Legislative Assembly has numerous constitutionally guaranteed powers that make it a formidable veto player for the president's policies (Carey 1997; Clark 2001).
Both presidential candidates and sitting deputies are more concerned with their party winning the
next election then with the president's score card for implementing his policy agenda. That
policy agenda may have helped the party to win the last election, but if short term costs of
policies are high (even if long term benefits would be great), the current president's policies will
not help the party to win the next election.
The most important gate keeping factor for whether a deputy gets to continue his or her
political career is whether that deputy's party wins the next election (Carey 1997: 209-10). Many
factors influence whether the incumbent party will win reelection, such as:
(a) whether this is the party's first or second term in office, since in post-1948 Costa Rican history no party has won the presidency for more than two consecutive terms
(b) whether the electorate is pleased with the economic management of the current government (i.e., pleased with the current president's policies)
(c) whether the voters like the policy agenda being proposed by the incumbent party's presidential candidate
(d) other factors (e.g., the health of the international economy, political scandals, corruption, crime).
B and C can create countervailing pressures for deputies of the president's party. If the party's
presidential candidate and the incumbent president have ideological differences about policies, or
if the incumbent president's policies are unpopular, the rational deputy will follow the policy
cues of his or her new potential patron.
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What CSPs and No Immediate Reelection Mean for the Relationship Between Candidates, Voters, and Party Leadership
Due to the no reelection provisions of Costa Rican politics, politicians in Costa Rica have
an incentive to be responsive to voters. This is an unusual conclusion, but it is what I will argue.
It is typically assumed that where party elites control nominations, elected officials will
be responsive to those party elites rather than to the voters. When elections involve closed-lists
put together by party elites, particularly where district magnitude is large enough to produce a
disincentive for deputies to seek a personal vote, deputies have a strong incentive to do the
bidding of the party elites who got them their jobs. Voters still had to vote for the party's slate in
sufficient numbers for the party to receive its seats in the legislature. This connects the party in
an abstract sense to the voters. But for the deputies the connection is with their patron -- the
party leader -- who gave them their electable position on the slate. If party leaders are relatively
stable over time, the rational deputy will do the bidding of the patron who gave them an electable
slot on the party list this time, so that they will continue to be their patron in the next election.
Voters are effectively left out of this arrangement, especially if the formal or informal barriers to
entry of new parties are high, so that voters have little real choice but to continue to vote for a
slate of unresponsive politicians, or to abstain.
In Costa Rica, though, party leaders/patrons are constantly changing since presidents
cannot be reelected. This, combined with the prohibition on immediate reelection for deputies,
means that once elected to the Legislative Assembly, deputies must maneuver to get an
appointed position in the executive branch in the next administration if they want to continue in
politics. The best way to do that is to accurately predict who will be your party's next candidate
for president and then help that candidate win the election. That can involve helping with the
campaign. It can mean attending to the requests for pork and particularistic service from people
15
and groups in your province so that they will vote for the party. It can also prompt the deputy to
"vote with the people" (or with loudly expressed popular interests) if organized groups oppose a
policy initiative of the president, particularly if the party's new presidential candidate is speaking
out against current policies. This was a common occurrence during the 1980s and '90s as
presidents pursuing economic restructuring encountered resistance from organized interests to
specific policy initiatives and then the president's legislation bogged down in the Assembly due
to lack of support from deputies of the president's own party (Clark 2001).
In the long run this kind of policy responsiveness to organized interests may not
maximize popular benefits. Economists would argue that structural reform of the economy is for
the common good in time. But that is beyond the scope of this paper. In the short term such
responsiveness means that the Legislative Assembly acts as a check on the policy-making power
of the president, even though in both major parties the presidential candidate is very influential in
determining the composition of deputy slates. The presidential candidate's important role in
deputy candidate selection does not translate into deputy loyalty for the next four years to the
president's policy goals. Instead deputies want to curry favor with their party's presidential
candidate and do what they can to help their party win the next election so that they will have the
opportunity to receive an appointive position in the executive branch. The result is that deputies
will listen to popular interests even if doing so stymies the legislative program of the president
who got them their current political job.
An Empirical Test -- Presidential Legislative Agenda Success
How might we test whether candidate selection procedures in Costa Rica have the
expected impact on policy, and on the president's ability to pursue his legislative agenda? One
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way is to examine the president's success at getting legislation passed. Since the Costa Rican
president's ability to direct his party's members in the Assembly is expected to decrease over
time as deputies become more concerned with making arrangements for their future political
careers, we would expect the president to be less successful with getting bills passed that he
initiated later in his term than with bills initiated early on. Since presidential candidates hold the
key to deputies' political futures, we would also expect that the president's ability to get his
legislation passed will decrease after his party selects its presidential candidate, especially if the
incumbent president and the presidential candidate have contradictory policy goals.17
To explore whether such a pattern actually occurs, I trace the legislative history of all
bills initiated by President José María Figueres (1994-98 PLN). The Figueres administration
was selected because President Figueres and his party's presidential nominee, José Miguel
Corrales, had contradictory policy goals. This allows a test of whether deputies start taking
voting cues from the presidential candidate, rather than from the incumbent president who played
an influential role in getting them their current seat in congress, because if both cue givers
supported the same policy, deputies could vote to please both at the same time. During the
Figueres administration most major issues were related to economic reform, structural
adjustment, and cutting the government budget to reduce the internal debt.18 Throughout
Figueres' term the government was engaged in loan negotiations with international lending
organizations, which insisted that Costa Rica sell off state-owned enterprises and cut the size of
the government's payroll. While Figueres did not back these policies during his 1993 campaign,
17 Deputy loyalty to the incumbent president may begin to break down before the official selection of the party's presidential candidate as the presidential primary nears and deputies make public moves to attach themselves to one candidate or another. 18 See Clark (2001) for a detailed presentation of economic reform policy during the Figueres administration. Increasing poverty and crime were also major concerns, but the causes of these problems were tied to the economic reform debate.
17
he soon switched his rhetoric and many of the bills his administration initiated were part of
implementing requirements set for obtaining loans.19 Corrales strongly disagreed with these
policies and criticized Figueres for his neoliberal economics and neglecting the fight against
poverty (Mesoamerica, Nov. 1995, p.9). Corrales won the PLN presidential primary June 1,
1997.20 Thus, this case provides a clear conflict for PLN deputies.
Unfortunately we cannot observe whether Corrales rewarded the deputies who supported
his policy preferences in the Assembly because he lost the 1998 presidential election to Miguel
Angel Rodríguez of the PUSC. The same party has won consecutive terms only twice since
1949. The PLN won the presidency in 1970 and 1974, and again in 1982 and 1986. While
examination of those cases would allow us to observe whether the PLN's presidential nominee
rewarded supportive deputies, in those two cases there were not marked policy differences
between the incumbent president and the presidential candidate, which is important for studying
whether the incumbent president's ability to pursue his legislative agenda decreases after his
party's new presidential candidate is chosen.
The 1994-98 period is also interesting for this test because the 1990s were a difficult time
for the PLN as it wrestled with whether its social democratic ideology was still viable. The party
was divided, with some party members and elites maintaining the party's traditional platform
(e.g., government monopoly over banking, state ownership of companies related to economic
19 Whether President Figueres genuinely supported these policies is beside the point of this analysis. He actively worked to obtain passage of his legislation by promoting the policies in public forums and by signing a pact with PUSC leader Rafael Angel Calderón to obtain the support of the PUSC, or at least a pledge that the PUSC would not obstruct his economic reform bills. 20 The two other serious contenders for the PLN presidential nomination were Walter Coto and Carlos Manuel Castillo. Coto also criticized Figueres' economic policies and often clashed with the President while he was President of the Legislative Assembly (May 1996-April 1997). Castillo, a former president of the Central Bank and PLN presidential candidate in 1990, supported neoliberal economic policies, but he dropped out of the presidential primary context on February 4, 1997 (Mesoamerica, Feb. 1997, p.12).
18
development), while others were willing to move away from this development strategy, arguing
that it was no longer viable.21
Data
The data consist of the 224 bills initiated by the executive branch during the Figueres
administration (May 8, 1994 - May 7, 1998). While most bills are initiated by deputies, our
interest is in the legislative success of the president over time, so only bills initiated by the
executive are used.
Bill expedientes were used to determine each bill's committee assignment and fate. The
Legislative Assembly has six standing committees, and several special committees were also
established during the 1994-98 period (e.g., committee on reform of the state, committee on
financial reform). The jurisdiction of each standing committee is codified in the Reglamento of
the Assembly (Art.66). A few bills were sent to two committees, in which case both committee
assignments were used in the analysis. Some bills were initially sent to one committee and then
later moved to another committee. This typically would happen before the first committee had
issued a report on the bill, so the last committee that had an opportunity to report on the bill was
used in the analysis.
Committees are supposed to issue a report on a bill within 30 days, unless the committee
president asks the President of the Assembly for an extension (Art.80). Technically, if a report is
not issued by the original or new deadline the President of the Assembly can request that the
committee issue the report by a certain date, and if the report is not issued the deputies on the
committee lose their salary (Art.80). However, many bills never receive a committee report, so
21 This ideological and strategy debate within the PLN was similar to the soul searching that was going on in many traditionally social democratic parties during the 1990s. See Yashar (1995: 97-9) for a more detailed discussion of the evolution of these factions within the PLN.
19
this rule does not appear to be enforced. Each new bill is added to the bottom of the committee's
order of business (Art.77). This schedule can be altered by a vote of 2/3rds of the deputies on
the committee (Art.78). Committees can issue positive and negative reports, and there can be a
majority report followed by one or more minority reports (Art.81). Thus, the fate of a bill can be
any of the following: a negative committee report, which kills the bill;22 no committee report, so
the bill never leaves the committee; a positive committee report, which makes it possible for the
Assembly to debate the bill, but does not guarantee that the bill will come up for debate; and
approval of the bill by the Assembly.23
Standing committees have nine members, except for the Finance committee, which has
eleven. The Legislative Assembly does not require that proportional representation of parties be
maintained in committees. The partisan breakdown of the standing committees during the 1994-
98 congress was as follows: the PLN had a majority of 5 seats to 4 on the Agriculture and
Natural Resources, Economics, and Social Issues committees. The PLN held 7 seats on the
Finance committee, with 4 for the opposition. The Judicial Issues committee had 4 members
from the PLN, 4 from the PUSC, and 1 member from a small party. The Government and
Administration committee had 1 member from the PLN and 8 from the PUSC.24
22 During the 1994-98 congress there was no formal requirement that a bill be archived after receiving a negative committee report. However, a negative committee report appears to have always meant the death of the bill. The 1998-2002 congress amended the Reglamento so that a bill that receives a negative committee report (either unanimous or majority) is immediately archived (Art. 81 bis). 23 After debating a bill the Assembly can turn it down, however that did not occur with any bills initiated by the executive branch during the Figueres administration. Instead, if the Assembly leadership did not expect that a bill would pass, the bill was never brought up for debate. The President can veto a bill once it has been passed by the Assembly, as long as it is not a budget bill. Twice President Figueres vetoed bills that he had initiated. 24 Committee assignments are made yearly, and each deputy serves on only one committee. The partisan breakdown of the committees stayed the same in each of the four years.
20
Findings
Table 2 shows the fate of the bills initiated by President Figueres, and overall it does not
indicate an impressive record of congress cooperation with the president. Of the 224 bills the
executive branch initiated, 46.9% were passed into law during Figueres' term.25 Committees
killed 10.3% of his bills by giving them negative reports. In addition, 23.1% of the executive's
bills never received a committee report, so they also died in committee. Finally, 39 bills (17.4%)
received positive committee reports but were not brought up for a vote by the Assembly. This
large percentage of bills that died after having survived the committee stage of the process
appears to be due to the Assembly leadership's reluctance to bring up for debate legislation that
they know lacks majority support.26 We cannot be sure whether the lack of support to proceed
with debate of a bill was due to opposition from the PUSC or opposition from deputies of
Figueres' own party. Either could delay action on a bill. Even if all PLN deputies supported a
bill, the PLN was one vote shy of a majority in the Assembly during the 1994-98 term, so unless
the PLN could make a deal with one of the deputies from a small party, it would have to
negotiate with the PUSC to secure passage of the bill.27
(insert Table 2 about here)
Table 2 also shows the breakdown of bill fates by the year in which the bills were
initiated. This was done in recognition that the later in a term a bill is initiated, the less likely it
25 Bills that were not passed during President Figueres' administration could be passed later. After the new congress was installed in May 1998, several of the bills initiated by Figueres that never received a committee report during his term were assigned to new committees. That, however, is beyond the scope of this analysis, as we are interested in the president's success at getting his legislation passed. 26 Some of these bills received their positive report from committee very late in the term and there may not have been sufficient time left for the full Assembly to debate the bill. However, most of these positive committee reports were issued long before the end of the term: 16 were issued before the end of 1996, 18 were issued during 1997, and 5 were issued between January and April 1998. 27 A deputy can request that a bill be scheduled for debate, but such a request falls on deaf ears if the Assembly leadership does not want to schedule the bill (personal communication with Maria Escobar-Lemmon based on her interviews with deputies pursuing decentralization legislation).
21
is to have the time to wend its way through the approval process. More important for our
purposes here, the yearly breakdown allows us to observe whether the President's success with
his legislative agenda diminishes over time, or after his party's presidential candidate is selected
(Corrales was officially selected as the PLN's candidate on June 1, 1997).
The percentage of executive bills that were passed into law decreases with each passing
year, which supports the expectation that the President's ability to direct his party's members of
the Assembly decreases over time. The percentage of bills that are never acted on by committee
increases over time, again indicating that the President's influence over the Assembly decreases.
However, it is interesting to note that it is bills initiated in 1995 that have the highest percentage
of negative committee reports. These bills were initiated long before the field of candidates for
the PLN presidential primary had solidified, and thus it indicates that President Figueres never
had much control over his party's members in the Assembly, even early in his term.28 In
addition, only slightly more than half of the bills the executive branch initiated in 1995 were
eventually passed by the Assembly, and only 41.3% of the bills initiated in 1996 were passed.
Thus, his success rate with bills initiated in the first half of his administration, long before a new
presidential candidate was selected, was not very high, which again indicates that President
Figueres never had much influence over his party's members in the Assembly.
Ideally for this test we would want roll-call votes so that we could determine if members
of Figueres' own party were voting against his bills, and if the number of PLN defections
28 Fourteen bills initiated by the executive branch in 1995 received negative committee reports. One negative committee report was issued in 1995, 12 in 1996, and one in 1997. Only the one negative committee report in 1997 was issued after Corrales was selected as the PLN's presidential candidate.
22
increased over time. However, roll-call votes are extremely rare in the Legislative Assembly,
and none were taken on bills initiated by the executive during the 1994-98 period.29
Another way to observe whether the president's control over deputies from his party
decreases over time, or whether they cooperate with his legislative agenda, is to look at which
committees were killing bills initiated by the executive branch. The President's party had a
majority on four of the six standing committees: Agriculture and Natural Resources, Economics,
Finance, and Social Issues. If PLN deputies on those committees wanted to help the President
move forward his legislative agenda, they could insure a positive committee report for his bills.30
Table 3 shows the number of bills initiated by the executive branch that were assigned to
each standing committee, and the fates of these bills. It appears that the PLN deputies on the
Agriculture, Economics, and Finance committees generally cooperated with the President. Of
the bills assigned to the Agriculture and Natural Resources committee, 46.2% were passed into
law, which means they received a positive report from the committee, and an additional 26.9%
received a positive committee report, though they were not debated by the Assembly. Thus,
73.1% of the bills assigned to the Agriculture committee received a positive committee report.
The Economics committee gave a positive report to 74.3% of the executive branch bills it was
assigned, and Finance gave a positive report to 83.3%. Many positive committee reports were
unanimous, but some were only majority reports. In the latter case we do not know whether the
positive reports were the result of unanimous PLN support within the committee, or if some
opposition deputies worked with a few of the PLN deputies to support the bills, while some PLN
29 Party leaders can still tell how deputies voted because deputies stand to indicate their support when a vote is taken. With only 57 deputies, it is easy for party leaders, and for observers in attendance at a session, to see how each deputy voted. Deputies have the right to explain their vote and some occasionally exercise this option. In debates of bills initiated by the Figueres administration, 11 deputies explained a negative vote (8 from the PUSC, 1 from Fuerza Democrática, 1 from Agraria Nacional, and 1 deputy who could not be identified). 30 The PLN deputies could not insure that all bills proposed by President Figueres's administration would be debated in committee because they lacked a sufficiently large majority to change the order of committee business (Art.78).
23
deputies defected from the executive. However, it is clear that the PLN deputies on these
committees did not often exercise their most direct option for obstructing the President's
legislative agenda, which was to give a negative report to a bill.31 Only two bills were given a
negative report by the Economics committee, and the Finance committee only gave one
executive branch bill a negative report. The Agriculture committee gave negative reports to four
bills (15.4%) initiated by the executive branch.32
(insert Table 3 about here)
The Social Issues committee stands out as a PLN dominated committee that did not
cooperate with the executive branch. Only 46.8% of the executive branch bills assigned to this
committee received a positive report, while 10 bills (21.3%) received a negative report, and an
additional 15 bills (31.9%) never received a report. Thus, even though the Social Issues
committee had a PLN majority throughout the term, which means that it was within the power of
the PLN deputies on the committee to move forward President Figueres' legislation, at least some
of the PLN members of this committee frequently defected from the President and voted against
his bills. The executive's lack of success in the Social Issues committee is further highlighted
when this committee is compared with the two committees where the PLN lacked a majority.
The Government and Administration committee, where 8 of the committee's 9 members were
from the PUSC, gave positive reports to 60% of its executive bills and only issued two negative
bill reports. The Judicial Issues committee, with only 4 PLN members and 5 opposition
deputies, gave positive reports to 60.6% of the executive bills, though this committee did write
negative reports on four bills from the executive.
31 Since the PLN held a majority of the seats on these committees, for the committee to issue a negative report would require the cooperation of at least one PLN deputy. 32 One of these was a joint report with the Government and Administration committee, and one was a joint report with a special committee.
24
When were negative bill reports issued? Did deputies begin to obstruct the President's
legislative initiatives late in his term, after the PLN had chosen Corrales as its presidential
candidate, or did the President's difficulties start earlier? Table 4 shows when obstructionist
behavior from committees occurred, and it is clear that deputies began defecting from the
incumbent president before the PLN had chosen its presidential candidate. Sixteen of the 25
negative committee reports were issued in 1996, while only six were issued around the time that
it became clear who would be the next PLN presidential candidate (i.e., in the months
immediately preceding the primary held on June 1, 1997, or after Corrales was selected). The
committee-based analysis thus again indicates that President Figueres never had much control
over his party's delegation in the Legislative Assembly, and that his legislative difficulties began
before deputies could be expected to be demonstrating their loyalty to the new presidential
candidate in order to better their chances of continuing in politics.
(insert Table 4 about here)
A Possible Explanation
Why did President Figueres have difficulty getting the Assembly to endorse his
legislative initiatives almost from the beginning of his term? A possible explanation is that the
PLN lacked a majority in the Assembly, and Figueres was a very unpopular president.
The PLN had only 28 of 57 seats in the 1994-98 Assembly, so the executive always
needed support from outside the PLN delegation to pass its bills. Many of the most important
pieces of legislation that President Figueres presented to the Assembly concerned economic
reform and state restructuring. Thirty-six of the 224 bills initiated by the executive branch fit
under this broad heading. The deputies representing small parties in the 1994-98 Assembly were
25
typically opposed to neoliberal economic policies, so President Figueres had to look to the PUSC
for support for his economic reform legislation and for the legislation that was required by the
international lending agencies as a condition for making loans. Figueres made policy
concessions to win PUSC cooperation with his programs, such as pledges to cut government
spending, and cutting a proposed 1% tax on corporate assets (Mesoamerica Mar.1995, p.4 and
May 1995, p.10). In his most overt effort to work with the PUSC to end government gridlock, in
June 1995 Figueres signed a pact with the leader of the PUSC, ex-President Rafael Angel
Calderón. Figueres agreed to work toward privatizing several state corporations, breaking up the
state monopoly on banking, and to combine several ministries. In exchange Calderón would
urge PUSC deputies to support the tax increase bills that President Figueres initiated to meet
demands made by international lending agencies. While PUSC deputies could still vote against
the bills, they were not supposed to take action to obstruct them so that they could be brought to
a vote in the Assembly. This agreement received immediate criticism from the PLN faction
opposed to privatizing state companies and ending the state banking monopoly, including
opposition from some PLN deputies (Clark 2001: 70-1; Mesoamerica July 1995: 9). In sum, the
steps President Figueres took to try to win opposition support to create a majority in the
Assembly to pass his bills, caused him to lose support from deputies in his own party. Since
these coalition-building maneuvers began in 1995, two years before Corrales became the PLN's
presidential candidate, PLN deputies began defecting from President Figueres long before the
second half of the four-year electoral cycle when deputies are typically thought to become
concerned about their post-Assembly job prospects.
In addition, José María Figueres was never a popular president. Throughout much of the
election campaign Figueres and Miguel Angel Rodríguez, the candidate of the PUSC, were tied
26
in the polls, and Figueres never received an endorsement from some key party members
(Mesoamerica Feb.1994: 2). His margin of victory over Rodríguez was only about 2%. Once he
became president his popularity did not increase. Instead, his approval ratings set new record
lows, even worse then the negative assessments of President Carazo (1978-82) who presided
over the terrible economic crises that led Costa Rica into the Latin American debt crisis. By
early 1995, 40% of people surveyed said that President Figueres was doing a "bad or very bad
job," and by September 57% rated his performance as "bad or very bad" while only 15% said
that his job performance was "good or very good." Throughout 1996 and the first half of 1997
he continued to receive negative job performance ratings from around 50% of respondents
(Mesoamerica Mar.1995: 4 and Nov.1995: 9; La Nación May 4, 1998). In surveys conducted by
CID-Gallup from November 1994 through October 1997 between 50 and 72% of respondents
said that the country was moving in the wrong direction, while never more than 30% said that the
country was moving in the correct direction (see Table 5).
(insert Table 5 about here)
The negative assessment of Figueres' job performance was due to a combination of
factors. One was that he was pursuing neoliberal economic policies that had large and
immediate negative impacts on clearly identifiable groups of people (e.g., privatizing state-
owned companies, raising taxes). Mary Clark (2001) contrasts these difficult "second stage"
reforms with the "easy" first stage reforms which produce clear winners and diffuse losers. Two,
the groups opposed to Figueres' policies and the demands of the international lending agencies
actively protested his policies. Threats to lay-off state workers led to protests from public sector
unions, causing the government to retract lay-off plans (Mesoamerica May 1995: 9). This made
it more difficult for the government to reach loan agreements with international lending
27
organizations, but did not regain the trust of state workers. In July and August of 1995 teachers
staged a month-long strike in protest of government legislation to reorganize the teachers'
pension fund. At one point 50,000 teachers protested in downtown San José and several people
were injured (Mesoamerica Aug.1995: 1-2). When the Assembly voted to change the pension
plan of deputies and employees of the judicial branch, more than 2,000 judicial branch
employees protested (Mesoamerica May 1996: 9). Riots that left two people dead occurred in
the port city of Limón when the government opened the stevedore industry to competition
(Mesoamerica Sept. 1996: 1). While the government eventually backed away from its plans to
allow private businesses to manage ports, and made concessions to the stevedores, again trust
was broken by the government's initial actions. Three, while Costa Rica's macro-economic
indicators generally continued their upward trend during the Figueres administration, most
people were feeling the impact of tax increases and price increases on basic goods, and in 1996
poverty increased from 1995 levels and the country experienced its worst economic performance
since the dark period of 1980-82 (Mesoamerica Nov. 1997: 10).
President Figueres' record low approval ratings in 1995 may have influenced PLN
deputies to break with the President, particularly on economic restructuring legislation that
would force an already angry mass public to swallow another bitter pill. The PUSC and its
business-sector supporters pressured for privatization of government-owned corporations and
decreasing the number of people on the government payroll. However, PLN deputies may have
been worried that if they worked with their President to implement such policies, the voters
would turn against the PLN in the next elections, particularly as large demonstrations occurred
protesting government policies. Because his party lacked a majority in the Assembly, President
Figueres did not have much maneuvering room to offer side-payments to PLN deputies to induce
28
them to stick with the government. Instead Figueres had to concentrate on gaining support from
the PUSC for his legislation, particularly the tax increase bills that were required by the
international lending agencies. The concessions he had to make to the PUSC so that they would
not obstruct his tax bills which the PUSC and its business allies opposed, antagonized the more
traditional social democratic faction within the PLN. This factional opposition within his own
party was evident long before Corrales became the new presidential candidate.
Conclusion
We would predict purely based on candidate nomination procedures that the Costa Rican
president could count on the loyalty of deputies from his party. The presidential candidate is
very influential in the selection of deputy candidates, and in return we would expect these
deputies to work to pass the President's legislative initiatives. Yet prohibitions on reelection
short-circuit this connection between president and deputy, lowering the likely cost to a deputy
of opposing the President, while increasing the potential benefit of supporting the policy
preferences of the party's new presidential candidate who holds the key to the deputy's
immediate political future.
However, the experience of the Figueres administration (1994-98) shows that deputies
defect from the President early in the term, rather than demonstrating loyalty and support until a
new presidential candidate is selected whose policy preferences and campaign platform could
pull deputies away from the incumbent president. At least in the case of President Figueres, an
unpopular president lost the support of the deputies who he helped to nominate when his lack of
popular support became clear. An unpopular president whose policies anger organized sectors of
society may even be perceived to be decreasing the deputy's chances of continuing in politics,
29
because the incumbent president's unpopular policies will make people less likely to vote the
incumbent party back into power, which is the only way deputies are likely to get to continue
their careers in politics.
This finding prompts questions about how the presidential candidates select which deputy
aspirants to back for electable positions on the party slates. Do they select deputy candidates
who agree with them on policies so that they will want to back the president in the Legislative
Assembly, or do they select friends who they expect will be loyal? Figueres may have picked
deputy candidates who agreed with him that the structural adjustment program that then-
President Calderón was negotiating with the international lending organizations was bad for
Costa Rica and that the government should not sell profitable state corporations or privatize the
national banking system. However, once he took office Figueres found that he could not
persuade the international lending agencies to dramatically change their requirements. Then
when he tried to bargain with the PUSC in order to end government gridlock, they insisted that
he pledge to sell government companies and open up the government monopoly on banks. This
meant that Figueres' deputies were faced with economic policies they opposed, even though they
were being proposed by a President who had helped them to get their jobs. At that point the
incentive structure created by the electoral system took over, and these deputies had little
incentive to remain loyal to their former political patron when they disagreed with his policies,
because he could not provide them with appointive posts in the future that would allow them to
continue their political careers. As President Figueres' popularity decreased it was likely that he
would not even be a particularly powerful leader in the party after his term was finished, so
deputies had few worries about their disloyalty coming back to haunt them in their more distant
political futures. Thus, despite candidate selection procedures that advantage the presidential
30
candidate, deputies are not loyal to the president once in office. Instead deputies want their party
to win the next presidential election so that they can receive appointed posts in the executive
branch have an incentive to pay attention to the opinions expressed by organized interests in
society.
31
References
Carey, John M. 1996. Term Limits and Legislative Representation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Carey, John M. 1997. "Strong Candidates for a Limited Office: Presidentialism and Political
Parties in Costa Rica." In Presidentialism and Democracy in Latin America. Scott Mainwaring and Matthew Soberg Shugart (eds.). New York: Cambridge University Press (pp.199-224).
Carey, John M. and Matthew Soberg Shugart. 1997. "Incentives to Cultivate a Personal Vote: A
Rank-Ordering of Electoral Systems.” Electoral Studies 14: 417-39. Casas Zamora, Kevin and Olman Briceño Fallas. 1991. ¿Democracia representativa en Costa
Rica? Analisis del sistema de elección de diputados en Costa Rica y sus perspectivas de cambio. San Pedro: Tesis en leyes, Universidad de Costa Rica.
CID-Gallup. Encuesta Nacional de Opinión Pública en Costa Rica. Consultoría Interdisciplina
en Desarrollo S.A. CID Gallup. Clark, Mary A. 2001. Gradual Economic Reform in Latin America: The Costa Rican Experience.
Albany: State University of New York Press. Código Electoral y Otras Disposiciones Conexas. 1986, 1989, 1993. San José, Costa Rica.
Imprenta Nacional. Lehoucq, Fabrice. 1997. Lucha Electoral y Sistema Político en Costa Rica 1948-1998. San José,
Costa Rica: Editorial Porvenir. Mesoamerica. San José, Costa Rica: Institute for Central American Studies. Feb. 1994, vol.13: 1-
2; Mar. 1995, vol.14: 3-4; May 1995, vol.14: 9-10; July 1995, vol.14: 9-10; Aug. 1995, vol.14: 1-2; Nov. 1995, vol.14: 9-10; May 1996, vol.15: 8-9; Sept. 1996, vol.15: 1-3; Feb. 1997, vol.16: 11-12; Nov. 1997, vol.16: 9-10.
Reglamento de la Asamblea Legislativa. 1997. Legislative Assembly, San José, Costa Rica.
Approved March 9, 1994. Taagepera, Rein and Matthew Soberg Shugart. 1989. Seats and Votes: The Effects and
Determinants of Electoral Systems. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Taylor, Michelle M. 1992. "Formal versus Informal Incentive Structures and Legislator
Behavior: Evidence from Costa Rica." Journal of Politics 54: 1055-73. Taylor, Steven L. no date. "A Framework for Studying Candidate Selection Processes." working
manuscript.
32
Wilson, Bruce M. 1998. Costa Rica: Politics, Economics, and Democracy. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.
Wilson, Bruce M. 1994. "When Social Democrats Choose Neoliberal Economic Policies: The
Case of Costa Rica." Comparative Politics 26: 149-68. Yashar, Deborah J. 1995. "Civil War and Social Welfare: The Origins of Costa Rica's
Competitive Party System." In Building Democratic Institutions: Party Systems in Latin America. Scott Mainwaring and Timothy R. Scully (eds.). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
33
Table 1 Votes and Seats Won by Major Political Parties in Costa Rica, 1953-1998
______________________________________________________________________________ % of Vote % of Vote Number of Seats Presidential Election Assembly Election in Assembly** ___________________ _________________ _______________ Year PLN PUSC* PLN PUSC* PLN PUSC* ______________________________________________________________________________ 1953 64.7 35.3 64.8 21.2 30 15
1958 42.8 46.4 41.7 43.8 20 21
1962 50.3 35.3 48.9 33.5 29 27
1966 49.5 50.5 48.9 43.2 29 26
1970 54.8 41.2 50.7 35.9 32 22
1974 43.4 30.4 40.9 24.7 27 16
1978 43.8 50.5 38.9 43.4 25 27
1982 58.8 37.5 50.5 33.8 33 18
1986 52.3 45.8 47.8 41.4 29 25
1990 47.3 51.4 41.9 46.2 25 29
1994 48.5 46.6 43.1 39.1 28 25
1998 43.2 45.5 33.7 39.8 23 28
______________________________________________________________________________ * The PUSC did not form until after the 1982 election. Before that time a conservative alliance of parties
opposed to the PLN regularly participated in elections, though the parties that made up the coalition changed somewhat from election to election.
** Until 1962 there were 45 seats in the Legislative Assembly. Beginning in 1962 the Assembly has had 57 seats.
Source: Computo de Votos y Declaratorias de Elección. Tribunal Supremo de Elecciones, República de Costa Rica.
34
Table 2 Legislative Record of President José María Figueres (May 1994-April 98)
_____________________________________________________________________________________________ Year bills were initiated: 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 TOTAL _____________________________________________________________________________________________ Number of bills initiated: 18 68 63 54 21 224 % passed into law 94.5 54.4 41.3 35.2 28.6 46.9 % receiving a negative committee report 5.5 20.6 9.5 3.7 0 10.3 % never reported out of committee 0 8.8 25.4 33.3 57.1 23.1
% receiving a positive committee report but not voted on by the Assembly 0 13.2 22.2 27.8 4.8 17.4
_____________________________________________________________________________________________ Note - percentage figures in a column may not sum to 100 because some bills did not follow any of the listed
categories. For bills initiated in 1995 one bill was withdrawn and one was archived by the congress. The status of two bills initiated in 1996 was not possible to determine. Two of the bills initiated in 1998 were not sent to a committee because the congress dispensed with a committee hearing and debated the bills directly.
Source: Bill expedientes in the Archivo of the Asamblea Legislativa de Costa Rica
35
Table 3 Committee Assignments of Bills Initiated by President José María Figueres
and Legislative Outcome
_____________________________________________________________________________________________ % positive comm. report number % passed % negative % not given but not debated of bills into law comm. report a report by Assembly _____________________________________________________________________________________________ Committee: Agriculture & Natural Resources 26 46.2 15.4 11.5 26.9 Economics 35 54.3 5.7 20.0 20.0 Finance 30 70.0 3.3 13.3 13.3 Government & Administration 15 46.7 13.3 26.7 13.3 Judicial Issues 33 42.4 12.1 27.3 18.2 Social Issues 47 29.8 21.3 31.9 17.0 Special Committee 27 22.2 7.4 48.1 22.2 unknown* 8 100.0 -- -- -- _____________________________________________________________________________________________ Note - committees in bold type are ones in which President Figueres' party had a majority. * Committee assignments were not known for 22 bills. In most cases this information was not available because
at the time of the field work to collect bill data the bill expediente was not available in the congress archives. To minimize the impact of missing data, where possible based on the committee jurisdictions codified in the Reglamento (Art. 66) committee assignment determinations were made. This was only done for cases where it was very clear which committee a bill would have been assigned to (e.g., all budget bills are sent to the Finance committee, and that committee's jurisdiction is listed as analyzing the national budget). This was possible for 14 of the 22 bills, resulting in one bill being added to the Agriculture committee, three to the Economics committee, six to Finance, one to Government and Administration, one to Judicial Issues, and two to the Social Issues committee. All of these bills were passed into law.
36
Table 4 Negative Bill Reports by Standing Committees & Year the Report was Issued
(number of bills initiated by the executive branch that received a negative committee report)
_____________________________________________________________________________________________ Year of negative bill report: 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 _____________________________________________________________________________________________ Standing Committee: Agriculture & Natural Resources 0 1 2 1 0 Economics 0 0 2 0 0 Finance 0 0 0 0 1 Government & Administration 1 1 0 0 0 Judicial Issues 0 0 2 2 0 Social Issues 0 0 10 0 0 Special Committee 0 0 0 2 0 _____________________________________________________________________________________________ Note - committees in bold type are ones in which President Figueres' party had a majority.
37
Table 5 Public Opinion Over Time Concerning President Figueres' Management of the Country
(percent responding to the question, Cuando Ud. toma en cuenta todo lo que pasa en Costa Rica cómo cree que va el país: por el camino correcto o por el camino equivocado?)
___________________________________________________________________________________________
Month/Year Camino Correcto Camino Equivocado
____________________________________________________________________________ April 1994 48 37 November 1994 25 60 January 1995 23 64 March 1995 17 72 July 1995 24 68 October 1995 24 60 January 1996 20 68 April 1996 18 50 July 1996 17 70 October 1996 30 55 January 1997 20 70 April 1997 15 72 October 1997 27 56 January 1998 30 47 April 1998 30 51
_____________________________________________________________________________ Source: Consultoría Interdisciplina en Desarrollo S.A. CID-Gallup. Encuesta Nacional de Opinión Pública
en Costa Rica. various. CID-Gallup.
