Challenges confronting the next Costa Rican president

The Inter-American Dialogue's Latin American Advisor and American University's AULA Blog both take a look at what Luis Guillermo Solis has inherited in Costa Rica and what he has to do in order to leave the country in a better position that what he now inherits.

In the Advisor, José Antonio Muñoz, partner at Arias & Muñoz in San José, argues that

Solís' challenge to govern, if elected, is threefold: to maintain the vibrancy of Costa Rica's productive sector, to find the right political and government figures to lead the administration, and to either find a working arrangement with Congress or to neutralize it. he easier task for the new president will be to seek and obtain the support of the business community. This, in turn, would facilitate the other two. 

Kevin Casas-Zamora, secretary for political affairs at the Organization of American States and former vice president of Costa Rica, argues that

The challenges that await Luis Guillermo Solís are complex, and he's been given a weak hand to play. The first one is to build a viable majority in a legislature in which his party controls only one-fifth of the seats and has no obvious partners to forge a stable coalition. The second one is to appoint a credible economic team that can soothe the anxieties of domestic and foreign investors. The third one is to rein in a deteriorating fiscal situation, which calls for a tax reform that Solís has pledged not to pursue in the first 2 years of his administration. All this is a tall order for a leader that lacks any previous executive or legislative experience, a solid political base of his own and a team with deal-making and policy-making depth. 

Solis inherits a troubled country (though that is a bit relative) and it is really difficult to predict how well he is going to do. His party's has little legislative support and his government experience is limited. I'm not sure that he can satisfy the country's needs with symbolic victories even if they are just intended as a means to an end.

Fulton Armstrong takes a look at Solis in Will Costa Rica Seize the Opportunity?

His public persona – as a university history professor, former diplomat, a non-corrupt political neophyte, and an unglamorous campaigner – has engendered sympathy even if, as the head of a party with no record, people don’t really know what they’re getting in terms of policy.  Various business groups have signaled they can work with him and presented their wish lists – all touching on energy availability and prices – but that agenda also remains vague.

It's unclear whether those characteristics that allowed him to move to the forefront of Costa Rican politics will help him to govern. Armstrong, like the first two responses, is also concerned with what Solis will be able to accomplish with so little legislative support.

I'd say that these responses all work well with Something is wrong in the region’s “exceptional” democracy, Costa Ricans look to turn the page after a rough few years, No whammies! No whammy, no whammy…. STOP!, and Business Implications of El Salvador and Costa Rica Votes.