In the Middle of a Dry Spell

Hi there, we’re just coming to the end of a long dry spell. And I’m not talking about the weather. The bars have been closed since Friday night, and they’re still closed! Jack arrived back on Friday, and we had to stock up for the weekend.

La Ley Seca
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The ‘Ley Seca’ or the Dry Law states that no alcohol can be sold anywhere in Costa Rica on the day before, the day of and the day after an election. Yesterday was election day with voting for the president, the parliament and local government. Supermarkets have black plastic refuse sacks taped over all fridges and drink shelves. Bars are sealed with luminous green paper that you can be imprisoned for tampering with. But, as in Ireland with Good Friday, the effect is just to have everyone stocking up beforehand. There were whole pallets of beer out in the middle of the supermarket aisles on Thursday and Friday.

Shock result
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Since I arrived in April, I’ve been so aware of the Oscar Arias campaign for president. He’s a very wealthy man, and has had full page ads in the newspapers over the past ten months. He was president from 1986 to 1990, and won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in ending many of the violent conflicts in Central America. I’ve had my concerns about him, mainly due to the huge money machine that is behind him. He was also very involved in overturning a law that limited the president to one term in office, a move which was designed to allow him to run again.

However, opinion polls constantly showed he had a large lead. The leading candidate must have over 40% of the vote to win outright, otherwise the top two candidates have to face each other in a run off vote on April 2nd (Another 3 days without drink if that happened!). Most polls showed him over this threshold, with the next candidate, Ottón Solís running behind on around 26%.

Election day was mainly marked by hundreds of supporters of all candidates driving around, clogging up all the traffic and beeping their horns. There was more beeping when the polls closed and early TV projections showed an Arias victory at about 43%. However, as the count progressed, it became clear that Solís had polled way ahead of expectations, and Arias’s lead began to slide. When it got within 0.2% the electoral commission suspended the electronic count, and counting is now by hand. They are currently running at 40.5% for Arias and 40.2% for Solís.

Jack’s back!
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After an absence of about 5 months, Jack finally arrived back on Friday morning. We’ve had a great weekend catching up and getting back into the groove of a life together. It’s been a long and difficult absence, but I think we’re both very positively looking forward to sharing the rest of this wonderful experience.
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So that’s it for another week. I’m getting used to my new head teacher duties, but the vast majority of my time is still in class teaching, which I’m really enjoying. We’re hoping to head off to Montezuma on the Pacific coast on Friday for the weekend.

So until next week,

Pura Vida,

Éamon

Today’s headline in La Nación: Official declaration of President-elect will not be made for two weeks.