The spokesman for the Supreme Electoral Court (TSE), Gustavo Román, made an explanatory video in the face of the confusion and misleading information circulating about the decisions taken by the institution regarding the registration of the candidacies of Here Costa Rica Manda and Pueblo Soberano.
The head of the ruling faction Pilar Cisneros criticized the legal and constitutional dictatorship of the TSE, Chamber IV and the Comptroller General of the Republic, and pointed out that the Supreme Electoral Court dealt a fatal blow to our right to elect and be elected, leaving out of the municipal ones that identify with the Government, in a clear coup of electoral political state.
Will it happen, I ask you, even if almost all parties fail to comply with gender parity in much greater proportion, the Supreme Electoral Court only applied the maximum punishment to Here Costa Rica Manda and Pueblo Soberano?, he questioned.
Román explained that it is normal in electoral processes that the administrative part of the TSE rejects a number of candidates for elections, it is also normal for political parties to appeal such decisions, as it always happens that the judges confirm some decisions or reject some appeals. On the other hand, it is normal for some decisions to be unanimous in a collegiate body and others are by a majority.
That’s what it’s like in Costa Rica and that’s the way it is in the courts around the world. Of course we understand that there are resolutions with which different politicians can agree or disagree. And it is also very healthy that these decisions are the subject of analysis and criticism by public opinion, he said.
Román stressed that it is a disrespectful excess for our democracy, admired all over the world, to call a decision that does not agree as a coup d’état, or to say that in Costa Rica we live in a dictatorship.
Did our grandparents and grandmothers have tears and a lot of effort to build our democracy, as well as to use those words so lightly. “There are many differences between a dictatorship and a democracy,” he said.
Román indicated that in a democracy who participates and wins in an election does not decide cravingly for an authority and those who can participate is something that is decided by the rules of the electoral game.
Is it not true that in the review of compliance with rules for these municipal elections, only two parties, here Costa Rica Manda and Pueblo Soberano, have been rejected candidacies. The court has decided 82 appeals, nine with place and 73 without place, appeals filed by dozens of political parties and in which the rejection of about 3,000 candidates was called for, he said.
He also pointed out that it is not true that these two parties are being left out of the municipal elections. They will be able to participate for regidurías and for councils in the cantons and in the districts where they complied with the rules to participate.
And with regard to the characteristic of dictatorships, of which the same political party always wins, there is a difference, in our country only in this century, the Christian Social Unity Party, the National Liberation Party, the Citizen Action Party have won, and in the last, the party that nominated the current president of the Republic, he added.
Román insisted that the other thing that differentiates a dictatorship from a democracy is that in democracy the principle is true rules, uncertain results. In dictatorships that make lying choices it is just the other way around. Before you start the election you already know the winner.
Similarly, Román clarified that the TSE established that if a political party failed to obtain joint payrolls, it could participate, provided that it demonstrated that the Higher Assembly of ratification of candidacies would open the opportunity for anyone who met the legal requirements, even if it did not meet the internal requirements of the party, nor was a militant, to run in the cantons or districts where people of a particular sex were missing.
It’s not about whether one party has more equal payrolls than another. Parity had to be met half and half, and if it was not met, it was to be proved that an attempt had been made to comply with it, but that it had not been possible, he said.
Román insisted that there are parties with non-parity lists that will be able to participate in the election because they showed that they did everything possible to fulfill parity. To verify that it is true, we apply cross-checking mechanisms. They had to record it in the minutes of the assemblies and that had to coincide with the audit reports of our delegates in those assemblies.
That’s the difference with the People Sovereign party and the party here Costa Rica Manda. Moreover, in syndicates, the party Here Costa Rica Manda did not even set, before starting the internal contest, the sex headings for each district, so they were not allowed even to do that internal process, he said.
Román emphasized that these rules came in the regulations for the registration of nominations. All parties were communicated and published in La Gaceta, before the electoral process began.
What’s more, we did three trainings for political parties on how to apply these parity rules. The rules were clear and we have applied them with absolute equality to all parties. That is our duty to you, to our democracy. That’s the truth and Costa Rica deserves no less, he concluded.
This article has been translated from the original which first appeared in El Mundo