Chaves: “Maybe the word ‘dictatorship’ was not the most appropriate, but a perfect tyranny”

QCOSTARICA – Following the backlash, President Rodrigo Chaves on Wednesday tried to reverse his controversial statement from Friday, June 14, when he assured that Costa Rica has lived in a “perfect dictatorship” since the mid-20th century.

“Maybe the word ‘dictatorship’ was not the most appropriate, but it was a perfect tyranny,” Rodrigo Chaves said on Wednesday in his live program, which usually follows a morning session of his cabinet.

Tyranny is the exercise of power by one who “obtains the government of a state against the law, especially if he governs it without justice and according to his will,” according to the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy.

– Advertisement –

Chaves’ words were a direct attack on seven of the last eight former presidents, through a manifesto made public the same day, which condemned Chaves for calling Costa Rica “the perfect dictatorship.”

This “tyranny”, Chaves’ response to the statement signed by all former leaders of Costa Rica, in which they say that the country is “the oldest continuous democracy in the Americas” and while admitting the need for improvements, rejected the speech of the current president because “he equated Costa Rica with countries like North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and others.”

Read more: Former presidents condemn Chaves for saying Costa Rica is a “dictatorship.”

The former presidents’ statement did not cause Chaves to reconsider, but rather he used it to criticize the former rulers for “building the tyranny of what some defend as institutional, but they put pieces in place to share the pie” , as he said.

The exception to Chaves’ answer is Abel Pacheco (2002-2006), although he also signed the statement.

In the context of his desire to call a referendum that reforms the powers of the Office of the Comptroller General (CGR), as he considers it part of the institutional structure that he complains about and which he describes as harmful, maintains Chaves’ speech against the system of traditional rule of law. system that dates back decades to the Political Constitution (1949).

– Advertisement –

“The governments of these seven people and their deputies elected all the judges and the CGR and passed the laws that bind us today. They began to give absolute power to the middle managers they appointed,” Chaves accused, further reinforcing criticism of traditional politics, which he claims to be reforming with actions such as the eventual referendum.

“You (former presidents) were accomplices, but fundamental authors of what we are trying to solve today,” Chaves said when answering the first question of his weekly press conference.

Chaves maintains his attack on the Costa Rican democratic system, despite saying in March that “Costa Rica has been a beacon of democracy” and despite numerous international organizations that have held up Costa Rica as an example of democratic stability.

Chaves’ argument is that current laws do not allow him to implement several reforms that he considers desirable for a referendum, thus limiting the people’s actual right to vote in direct elections, as intended by the bill that establishes these month is submitted. for the Legislative Assembly, albeit without the announced projects and limited to reforms of administrative controls.

– Advertisement –

The former presidents’ statement does not even mention the possibility of a referendum, but it does mention the current context of the political discussion.

“Ignoring the best of our history and changing the truth of the facts will not only prevent us from solving the problems we still have, but will also aggravate them,” says the document signed by Óscar Arias , Rafael Ángel Calderón, José María Figueres, Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, Abel Pacheco, Luis Guillermo Solís and Carlos Alvarado.

Related

– Advertisement –