by Pilar Saavedra-Vela
“Costa Rica’s Boring Elections Are a Model for the World.” —Foreign Policy, February 4, 2022
The two leading candidates to emerge from a large field reflect voters’ concerns about economic malaise and corruption, but there’s little sign of the upheaval seen in other regional elections. Costa Rica’s president will be decided in a runoff [on April 3] after none of the record twenty-five candidates managed to secure enough votes to win during the February 6 election. —Council on Foreign Relations, February 10, 2022
Distant car horns
blare in three-beat compass,
announcing that voting
is fully in swing,
like a Sunday party
in Democracy Plaza,
in San José, in all Costa Rica.
Bananas still leave here in ships
to the North and Europe.
Still a banana republic,
that pejorative qualifier
which, from northern heights
of civilization, disdained
Central America.
But here nobody is rushing
the Congress building
or maiming its guards.
No military parades,
no goosesteps, no gallows,
no guns firing in the air.
It’s a party out there
for 25 candidates
who know it’s not certainty
but a prayer
that the people will
let them lead.
Even in pandemic,
it’s a festival out there
on a Sunday,
no alcohol allowed,
but lots of flags, a spree
of blue, yellow, red, green
balloons,
horn-blowing,
sun.
Pilar Saavedra-Vela has lived in Costa Rica for almost 34 years. Born in Colombia, she grew up in the DC area, to where she returns almost every year. She is a translator and hotel owner who writes poetry since 2006. One of her poems was published in Passager in 2020.