The Supreme Elections Tribunal has called for an investigation into the government's CAFTA campaign after a memo emerged from Costa Rican officials advising the president of Costa Rica to make mayors responsible for generating support for the upcoming CAFTA referendum and recommending that the government deny them funding for the next three years if their area does not approve CAFTA.
The memo is now being discussed in Costa Rica's parliament, and some lawmakers have called for the resignation of the officials involved, sources said. CAFTA and the referendum itself have been subject to many delays and several legal fights in Costa Rica's Supreme Court (Inside U.S. Trade, July 13).
Written in Spanish, the memo is from one of two Costa Rican vice presidents and a member of parliament, and is addressed to both President Oscar Arias and another senior official. A Costa Rican official stressed that the memo was only advisory, not government policy, and that the vice president is not responsible for planning the CAFTA campaign.
However, a Costa Rican source opposed to CAFTA charged that many of the other recommendations of the memo, such a running a fear-based campaign, are being followed publicly by the government in its pro-CAFTA efforts, including emphasizing job losses if CAFTA is rejected and warning of larger influence in the country by Leftist leaders such as Cuban President Fidel Castro or Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
The memo also mentions that the credibility of the government is very low and could be insufficient to confer legitimacy on a pro-CAFTA campaign. The memo, dated July 29, was released last week by a publication in Costa Rica, El Semanario Universidad, sources said.