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Perhaps we are so much a macho society that says a female elected to the highest office in the country is looked at as a “colleague” and not given the deserved respect of the office? Or perhaps it is the Arias brother´s collective ego who believe they are still running Costa Rica.

Or, is Laura Chinchilla the shill she was characterized to be during the campaign?

Sixty days is too short to know.

However, we do know that Rodrigo Arias, the brother of don Oscar, lacks class as reported by La Nación, a Spanish language newspaper.

Apparently he showed, uninvited, for a meeting at the office of the President of Costa Rica and claimed that he was telephoned by the president´s secretary for that meeting.

The secretary denied any such call and there is no record of it in the log. Don Rodrigo Arias, who without humility, has declared himself the de facto Liberación presidential candidate in 2014, simply thought he would be received by a “colleague,” do he said.

When I teach, I always teach to managers that the informal organization is much stronger than the formal one and this is a good case in point. If you are not on your game, the informal organization can destroy the formal one in a New York minute.

Don Rodrigo, who holds no office whatsoever, but by his relationship and former status just assumed that the newly elected president is equal in rank if not inferior to himself.

I´ve got news for him. The office of “president” is just that.

Laura Chinchilla is the boss and the only boss. She is to be treated with the respect that comes with that office for the next four years.

The Presidenta took over at a time when on paper things looked great. A new stadium, promise to repair bridges, promises to build roads, promises to feed the hungry and educate the uneducated.

Then, aS Forest Gump once said, “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you´ll get.” No truer word have ever been spoken.

What Laura Chinchilla did not receive from the Arias brothers was money to fund any of those promises. In fact, she was elected to a massive deficit. The deficit for the 1st five months of 2010 is 97% greater than the deficit for the 1st five months of 2009 and growing. And she was in office only one of the five months.

Think about it, Doña Laura was elected president but Bruno Stagno, an Oscar man, had the “chutzpah” to name himself as Ambassador to the United Nations while creating a non-existent job for the last ambassador. She canned that one!

She inherited a legislature whose first and only piece of legislation was to give itself a 60% raise in pay. She had to threaten to veto that and has come under fire from her own party, Liberación for, “…..giving in to the will of the people.” Is that not what she is supposed to do?

Liberación does not give up easily on getting a pay raise so the concept is back up on the table but not until the legislature comes back from its self voted vacation earned after two months of work.

She has inherited a two plus year traffic reform law that is once again being discussed and debated with the input of the new MOPT director who announced that passing over a double yellow line, a u-turn or passing on a bridge will be construed as reckless driving and may result in a three year jail sentence. Jail? (I´ll never drive again but rather sell drugs or rob a bank and be set free!)

The Minister of Security issued a mandate to the police that they are to cover and secure specific areas in the morning to protect workers and school kids…they never showed up. Not one!

The Highway to Hell, the road to Caldera was going to remain open despite not one, but five fatalities all because former President, Arias really wanted to cut the ribbon on an unfinished and dangerous toll road that took 30+ years to build. Chinchilla threatened to close it and have it repaired if MOPT did not.

(I only wish she would do the same with Route 32 to Limon which is equally as dangerous but constructed by the government so there is some kind inherent exemption from accountability.)

As to a much needed fiscal policy, the last administration left her with that one to figure out for herself. That means they left her nothing, zip, nada in policy or in the bank.

This seems to reek of let´s make Laura Chinchilla the bad guy, so to speak, and we take over later. In 2014 Liberación lead by Rodrigo Arias will wear the white hats riding those big white horses and with smoke and mirrors come to save the day.

Be careful guys because take away those hats, give you some trumpets to blow and we might have the Apocalypse riding down Avenida Central.

The assembly was given five years to get out of their present office location not because it is too small, but because the Ministry of Health declared the place a dump. “Uninhabitable” is the word used.

Now the legislatures want to censure the Minister of Health, Avila for something to do with milk because they cannot believe the five years have gone by so fast. I understand that feeling very much. But still, that´s a crummy excuse.

A political tit for tat that costs money and time we cannot afford.

Finally, only 12%, that means 88% of ALL police stations and offices are uninhabitable and there are no plans and no funds to improve them. Do you wonder why we have become the darlings of the drug cartels?
So, this is what our new president inherited and this is what she is up against. She not only has to contend with old school politics, but desertion within the ranks.

Why?

Leaving the country highly in debt with lots of promises, assurances and no cash is an Oscar Arias legacy exactly the same as his first term in office. He left behind unfunded “expectation”.

I think to a lesser extent because she is a woman and the elite of Costa Rica is not prepared to accept a female leader is one more unspoken challenge she faces. She is being bashed behind closed doors and challenged in front of them. She was supposed to be a Liberación caretaker, a “puppet” so to speak. However, so far she has decided not to do that and that has rankled some very important feathers that probably deserved to be rankled.

Old School Costa Rica will not quit and I certainly hope she does not surrender to them.

Presidenta, Laura Chinchilla has kept a relatively low public profile during all this and on major issues except using new media outlets such as You Tube.

My arguable opinion is that she needs to rapidly become more public and tell the people who elected her and are following her presidential leadership the real state of affairs that she inherited and her plans, not those of the Arias brothers, to manage this country.

I am pretty much neutral on her abilities to govern, but she deserves an honest chance to prove her worth.

By John Holtz*

*John Holtz is the Executive Director of the Center for the Studies of Modern Management
www.modernmanagement.org and can be reached at:  jrh@modernmanagement.org.