If yesterday’s elections in Costa Rica were, as many claimed, a de facto referendum on same-sex marriage, then the issue won resoundingly, along with other progressive and feminist issues. The Partido Accíon Cuidadana (PAC, Citizen Action Party) center left candidates Carlos Alvarado Quesada (President) and Epsy Alejandra Campbell Barr (Vice President) won in a landslide against the ultra-conservative religious right candidate.
Alvarado Quesada, age 38, becomes Costa Rica’s youngest modern President. Campbell Barr is the first woman of African descent to be elected Vice President in Latin America. (Afro-Costa Ricans comprise 7.9 percent of the population.)
The women in my office, thank you for joining me in my legislative work.
54-year-old Campbell – named after her grandmother who immigrated from Jamaica to Costa Rica – is an economist who has served in the legislature and previously ran for vice-president. She has used her platform to speak out against racism in the country. In 2015, for example, she criticized Cocorí, one of Costa Rica’s most famous works of literature. Joaquín Gutiérrez’s 1947 children’s book features a young Afro-Caribbean boy searching for a monkey while leaning on stereotypes and racist caricatures. When the National Music Center aimed to adapt the book into a musical, Campbell spoke out and successfully stopped the project. [...]
Having worked with the Center for Women of African Descent, the Alliance of Leaders of African Descent in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Black Parliament of the Americas, Campbell has made her mark. She vows to do more in her new role. “It will be a responsibility not only to represent people of African descent but to represent all women and men in the country,” she said, “a country that gives us all the same opportunities.”
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Before the election, Campbell Barr said “It will be a responsibility not only to represent people of African descent but to represent all women and men in the country, a country that gives us all the same opportunities.”
In San Isidro de Heredia this thing is heating up.
Same-sex marriage as an election issue was catalyzed by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruling this year that member countries should allow same-sex marriage and property rights.
This decision prompted upheaval in Costa Rica’s race and improved the chances of Fabricio Alvarado, a legislator from a party supported by religious conservatives.
The Inter-American Court’s ruling “was really the equivalent of dropping an atomic bomb on the race,” said Kevin Casas-Zamora, a senior fellow at the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington and a former vice president of Costa Rica. “The whole race was transformed literally overnight.
The losing candidate, evangelical Fabricio Alvarado Munoz, campaigned for “traditional values,” specifically opposing sex education in schools, “gender-ideology” and women’s right to abortion. He called the Inter-American court decision an affront to Costa Rica’s sovereignty and promised to pull the country out of the Court and the Organization of American States.
[Gender ideology] is a theory drummed up by hard-right religious activists, who present it as a gay- and feminist-led movement out to upend the traditional family and the natural order of society. It’s a catchall phrase to sell a false narrative and justify discrimination against women and LGBT people. . .
The term first surfaced in the Vatican, in the mid-1990s . . . Advances in women’s rights threatened the Catholic church, which feared this would open the floodgates to abortion and promiscuous behaviour, and lead to the downfall of western civilisation.
In contrast, the PAC candidates pledged to implement the Inter-American ruling. Alvarado Quesada promised to run a prejudice free government. “We’re going to work for everyone, and we won’t discriminate against anyone. We will protect all groups that have felt vulnerable.”
During an International Women's Day address, Campbell Barr said "I want to invite you to vote on April 1st to build an inclusive, transparent Costa Rica, a Costa Rica for all people, it is for us, it is for Costa Rica.” She reiterated this theme during the campaign, promising to represent women rights and work towards gender pay equity.
In his victory speech last night, Alvarado Quesada said, “Today the world is looking at Costa Rica, and Costa Rica, once again, sends forth a beautiful democratic message . . . Costa Rica is a marvelous country, and it is one country. Let’s celebrate that. This election, in particular, has held up a mirror to our country. We have to understand this in a profound way, and as the country’s first servant… I must unite this country and make it a leading republic in the 21st century.”