Rodrigo Chaves’ eagerness to ‘transform Costa Rica’ impacts public health care and education

Rodrigo Chaves has always maintained he had little in common with Costa Rica’s traditional political parties. When he came to power, he also targeted the traditional bastions of the Costa Rican democratic system. But his eagerness to “transform Costa Rica” has taken him several steps further, and he now has education and health in his sights, systems that have for decades guaranteed the welfare of this Central American nation to the envy of neighboring countries. The move has triggered calls for mass demonstrations against an administration that has been in power for just over a year.

Confident of popularity ratings above 60%, despite a dip in recent months, the Chaves government is rolling up its sleeves in readiness for a shake up. On the one hand, it criticized the state-run Costa Rican Social Security Fund (CCSS), which manages the extensive network of state hospitals and clinics, and questioned the universal health care model established in the country’s Constitution. Chaves also justifies budget cuts to education and described the article in the Constitution that fixes investment in education at a minimum of 8% of GDP, as a “populist measure” during a press conference in which more than half an hour was spent criticizing state universities.

The attacks have ramped up the tension between Chaves’ loyalists and some leading right-wing figures, and the university and health sectors supported by members of the opposition. On June 20, thousands of university students and members of teachers’ unions marched through San José to demand a full budget for the higher education centers which collectively cater to around 125,000 students. Different health sector unions have also organized a protest march for July 15 “in defense of the CCSS.”

Chaves came to power on May 8, 2022, promising to fight corruption and work towards a more efficient state. But unrest among civil groups, unions and opposition parties has grown since his first anniversary at the helm. The two pillars of Costa Rica’s welfare system, education and health, are under threat. Chaves and his cabinet have taken bold and even authoritarian steps, according to his detractors, despite the fact his election manifesto never included reducing state investment in education or intervening in the CCSS to the point of describing the model established in the 1960s as “unviable.”

“It is clear that the current legislation for the health service is financially unsustainable,” said Marta Esquivel, president of the CCSS that employs 50,000 and has a budget of more than 12% of the national GDP, prompting it to be described as “the largest company in Central America.” Appointed by Chaves, Esquivel publicly questioned the format adopted in the 1960s when the health service began tending to the entire population, provided the government paid the CCSS for any member of the public without insurance. According to the last invoice, a debt of $4,365 million has accumulated over the years; Chaves has refused to pay it despite the fiscal “prosperity” he boasts of. He calls the CCSS financially “bankrupt” due to mismanagement by previous administrations, the privileges claimed by its officials and internal corruption.

Also in the crosshairs is Article 78 which calls on the State to invest no less than 8% of GDP in pre-school, primary, secondary and university education services, a goal that has not been reached on occasion but never openly questioned, or criticized as Chaves criticized it following the university students’ march. “One cannot rationally help but wonder if a country that is aging, and where there are fewer and fewer students, should have tied itself to 8% of GDP,” he said, regarding the constitutional reform approved in 2011 and embraced by the state universities whose autonomy is also being questioned by the President. “It seems to me that this could have been a populist measure at the time.”

Chaves may have evidence to back his arguments especially regarding the amounts invested in education and the disproportionately poor results. In recent years, there has been a sharp decline in the quality of public education, exacerbated by the pandemic; think tank Estado de la Nación dubbed it an “educational blackout” in 2021. The “worst crisis of the last decades” is having a negative impact on the sector which assists almost 1.2 million students amounting to 23% of the population, and which has allowed Costa Rica to compete with Latin America’s economic powers, such as Chile, Mexico and Uruguay.

The Education Minister, Anna Katharina Müller, promises to recover these standards despite the overhaul of management and the criticism from teachers’ unions and opposition MPs regarding the lack of a clear strategy for the students she refers to as “the glass generation.” Müller has clashed with the university authorities, particularly since deciding to post her arguments on TikTok with messages the rectors claim to be false, a recurrent accusation leveled against Chaves’ administration.

“We are not fighting for money or abstract principles, we are fighting for living conditions,” said María José, a university student who had been at the student protest. She is at odds with her father who agrees with the budget cuts to state universities. “What I say to him is that, yes, we must improve how the universities work, but we cannot fall into the trap of thinking that the way to do this is to undermine them. Chaves wants this simply because he cannot control them, and he likes to control everything.” She was angry after hearing Chaves questioning the existence of degrees with less job prospects at the University of Costa Rica (UCR). This is where Chaves himself embarked on a degree in economics without much success, as he himself regularly points out.

The confrontation between the government and the five public universities, represented by the National Council of Rectors (Conare), has been intense. The National Council claims to be defending more than their budget: “When the budget for public education is cut and the constitutional mandate to reach at least 8% of the GDP is abandoned, our specific case is ignored, our history is erased and our Magna Carta, which far from being populist, is the fundamental law that regulates our coexistence in democracy, is violated,” it stated.

But Chaves claims to be defending the CCSS and public education, including universities, because he maintains that his government only wants to improve how they function for the benefit of the “people,” a collective he frequently pits against “the rich” and privileged. It is a motif he falls back on in almost every speech, including the one railing against the Judiciary and the Constitutional Chamber, a court that has issued several rulings against his administration. The most recent at the end of June meant the government being forced to reinstate CCSS directors representing workers, almost half a year after they were dismissed.

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