COSTA RICA LIBERTARIANS CONTROL MANY OF COUNTRY'S PROVINCES

June 30th 2005

St Petersburg FL--The growing Costa Rican Libertarian movement, which controls some 10% of the country's Congress, has announced it is the main party in 13 of the country's 81 counties.

The Movement also is doing well in Presidential polls, with 10% of the prospective vote. While the Presidential vote is considered a foregone conclusion with the personally popular former President Arias, the fact that they are doing this well is a platform for continued influence, say observers.

The Movement's new website features detailed expositions on Libertarian philosophy, legislative proposals, and promotional items, and features a new motto, "Forward. Don't go backwards even to move forward!"

INTERNAL DISCUSSION

The Movement is emerging from a period of spirited discussion where several members resigned, including it's co-founder, who was originally chair of the Libertarian Party of Florida. Members expressed concern over incautiously accepting government campaign financing--derided by Libertarians in the US but more acceptable culturally in Latin America-- and running candidates not in agreement with the entire platform as long as they pledged to implement it.

The US national party has rejected government campaign financing as morally questionable, but state parties may use it depending on the nature of the program. Libertarians say for them the issue is whether it is substantially voluntarily financed. However, no US Party uses government campaign financing according to Julie Chorgo, who tracks Libertarian activity for the Libertarian International Organization in St Petersburg, Pinellas, Florida.

"In general, people found the government programs created more problems than they solved and attracted the wrong money-hungry element, like many other government programs that promise voluntary benefits but turn out to be taking something from somebody," she said. "People simply had to learn from experience. US Libertarian parties have run partial Libertarians without problems, but some have had real headaches. Usually, what's needed is to better train candidates in Libertarianism. In Florida they have an extensive training program that gets people on the same level of understanding. The national USA LP has begun a web-training program. The Movimiento has been very concerned about education on Libertarianism."

OTHER LIBERTARIAN EFFORTS

In addition, a Libertarian Institute ( http://www.institutolibertario.org ) is active in Costa Rica brining speakers to schools and colleges, and studying various initiatives.

Another Libertarian think tank, INLAP, has attracted international attention with its policy proposals and analyses of how tax levels and antiquated regulations harm the poor.

Among reasons attributed to the Libertarian movement's growth there are careful training, and highly active local groups. Libertarians in Costa Rica say they are working to spread the movement across other Central American countries.

The Movimiento has attracted enormous support among the poor, labor, minorities, unhappy government officials, and small businesspeople.

Libertarians offer an array of less- to no- government alternatives as a means of better protecting human rights, they say, and are active in over 100 countries.

By M. Davis
Free-lance writers

Libertarian Books

Keywords and Misspellings:  Libartarian Libertarian Democrat Greens Floreda