Rodrigo Alberto Carazo Zeledón filed his resignation as president of the ruling Citizen Action Party on Wednesday evening, citing health and personal reasons.
The negotiation skills of Luis Guillermo Solís' administration were tested this week by protests on Tuesday in which hundreds of residents from several Costa Rican communities blocked main roads in three provinces for eight hours. But there's more to the story.
Opposition lawmakers expressed a mix of outrage and approval Monday afternoon at the 100-day report presented by President Luis Guillermo Solís last week. Many lawmakers who opined about the president’s report agreed that any guilty parties should be punished, but they urged the president to provide more concrete proposals to address the problems he identified while speaking last Thursday at San José's Teatro Melico Salazar.
In a tour de force Thursday night, President Luis Guillermo Solís delivered a frank and biting assessment of the disarray he encountered when taking office last May, and his 100-day efforts at changing an entrenched political culture of corruption.
A reorganization of the Solís administration has the tourism sector on edge. On Monday, the Costa Rican Chamber of Hotels criticized a decree signed by President Luis Guillermo Solís that places the tourism sector under the authority of the Economy Ministry.
Leaders of the National Tourism Chamber sent President Luis Guillermo Solís a letter asking him to block a Finance Ministry decree ordering tourism businesses to collect sales tax on several tourism activities that were previously exempt.
On Monday evening, hours after the president requested an hour Thursday afternoon to present his assessment of the government as he found it after President Laura Chinchilla (2010-2014) left office in May, the heads of the fractious political parties refused to give him the floor. Solís blamed the National Liberation Party (PLN) for the delay in the report, which would be a first of its kind in Costa Rica.
In a press conference Monday afternoon, National Liberation Party lawmaker Juan Rafael Marín threatened to trash the front lawn of the Casa Presidencial – literally. Marín, along with five other lawmakers, called the press conference to draw attention to the closure of 22 municipal solid waste dumps across the country. They say the closures have left municipal governments with few options to manage their citizens' garbage.
Many Costa Ricans say that despite some early stumbles in the administration of Luis Guillermo Solís, the country is on the right track, and they rated the president's performance as good – for now.
The plan has a particular focus on working mothers and people with disabilities. The national unemployment rate is 8.5 percent, but the rate is higher among women, reaching 10.8 percent. Some 65 percent of 188,00 unemployed Ticos have a disability.
