Podcast: Rodrigo Chaves’ “Heir” in Costa Rica Outruns the Pack

The following is the transcript of episode 58 of the weekly El Faro English podcast, Central America in Minutes.

BUKELE: If a state doesn’t defeat crime, it’s because it’s complicit, or parts of the state are complicit. Once a state frees itself from complicity with delinquency, and takes strong action against the criminals, it defeats them.

GRESSIER, HOST: Last week, Nayib Bukele attended the groundbreaking for a new megaprison similar to CECOT in Costa Rica. The country is facing record homicides fueled mostly by drug trafficking.

And after four years in power, President Rodrigo Chaves claims the only way to fix this is to put his successor, Laura Fernández, in charge in the elections on February 1 and replicate Bukele’s rule.

A plan of continuity

Costa Rica will hold presidential and legislative elections in nine days, on Sunday, February 1. And just two days ago, pollsters at the University of Costa Rica put ruling party Pueblo Soberano —or “Sovereign People”— candidate Laura Fernández far ahead of the pack, with 40 percent of the vote.

This would allow Fernández, a former Minister of the Presidency and confidant of President Rodrigo Chaves, to win outright on election night, rather than holding a runoff on April 5. 40 percent is the exact threshold she would need.

And she jumped up ten points in the polls in the last month as more and more undecided voters have staked out a position.

According to the UCR polling, one-third of voters are still undecided. But the second-place candidate, Álvaro Ramos of the traditional National Liberation Party, or PLN, is way behind with eight percent. The next four candidates combined only hold 17 percent of intended votes.

Rodrigo Chaves won the presidency four years ago as a Trump-inspired candidate promising to “Make Costa Rica Prosperous Again.” He has been in constant conflict with the Costa Rican judiciary and legislature, claiming that they have tied his hands as the country has seen a sharp increase in violence.

Chaves, who has kept a steady approval rating around 58 percent, is now seeking a seat in the Legislative Assembly. Fernández, his party’s candidate, has called her presidential platform a “plan of continuity.” She has also called herself Chaves’ “heir.”

Enter Nayib Bukele, Central America’s most popular politician. He and Chaves have cultivated close ties, repeatedly visiting and endorsing each other. Bukele hasn’t named Fernández explicitly, but he has said that the country should remain on the same track.

When Bukele attended the prison groundbreaking this week, he recalled his dismissal of Salvadoran constitutional magistrates and other senior judges in 2021, which consolidated his total control over the three branches of government.

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As Andrés Dimas reports, Chaves has branded the future prison CACCO, in a similar acronym to the Salvadoran facility, CECOT. Chaves proposed that Costa Rica should push much further.

“This CACCO will stay empty if our laws and Judiciary aren’t changed,” he said, adding: “Mr. President Nayib Bukele has laid out for us what a dictatorship of organized crime is like. Only fools don’t learn from others.”

Consensus with whom

Next, we turn to Honduras, which has begun the transfer of power. At least as far as the electoral authorities are concerned, all of the criss-crossing fraud allegations and denunciations of irregularities have been reduced to background noise for now.

President-elect Tito Asfura met on Sunday, January 18, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem. As we covered last week, days earlier he met with the Trump administration and Israeli ambassador in Washington.

Outgoing ruling party Libre has called the incoming National Party administration a “de-facto government” but President Xiomara Castro has said she’ll still hand over power.

And Congress will hold its swearing-in and first session on Sunday, January 25. Asfura will be sworn-in on Tuesday the 27th.

The head of the National Party caucus, Tommy Zambrano, was named president of the Provisional Executive Board of Congress. They will hold the largest share of seats, with 49 out of 128.

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The National and Liberal Parties announced early agreements at the headquarters of the powerful business association COHEP, putting aside election-season beef. An alliance could give them a combined 90 votes — a majority of almost three quarters.

Zambrano says the top priority will be to reform the country’s electoral system, including expanding the time between the deadline to declare results and inauguration and adding a runoff for the presidency — all points of weakness last year.

As for Libre, they now hold 35 seats, making them the third power in the legislature. And it’s even visible in the comms department of Congress, which is hardly non-partisan. Overnight, the X account went from boosting Libre to the National Party.

Last time around, in 2022, legislators from Libre broke into a brawl amongst themselves on the floor of Congress over who would be president. This year, the Trump-aligned National Party is promising “dialogue and consensus.”

But after a virulent election, marked by the heavy hand of Donald Trump, the question could be consensus with whom.

Detention in exile

Last, we turn to El Salvador, where Nayib Bukele used Interpol to go after an exiled photojournalist in Spain.

On January 2, Spanish police arrested Diego Rosales, who had arrived in Sevilla to request asylum. Spain was complying with an Interpol red notice issued from El Salvador and presented Rosales before the Audiencia Nacional for a hearing.

This came as little surprise to Rosales, as Graciela Barrera reports. Days earlier, his brother had been detained in Argentina, where he’s a university professor. His family had faced months of harassment at their home in El Salvador from the police under the state of exception.

Rosales, who’s 25 years old, has published photography in outlets including The Guardian, El País, and El Faro.

In El Salvador, where the judiciary and prosecutor’s offices are tightly and personally controlled by Bukele, an organized crime court has charged him with digital theft and illicit association. El Faro reviewed the indictment and found that the only alleged evidence provided against Rosales was a bank transfer of under 2,000 dollars from his brother.

Prosecutors claimed that this money was obtained from bitcoin fraud involving over 50 people, including two of his brothers. Rosales asserts that he has never used bitcoin. He began preparing his asylum request after learning of the charges, arguing that he wouldn’t receive due process in El Salvador.

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In the last year, dozens of journalists, human rights defenders, and other dissidents have fled El Salvador to avoid political arrest by Bukele’s police, who often lure people from their homes on false pretenses.

When Reporters Without Borders and the Salvadoran Journalists’ Association denounced Rosales’ arrest, Bukele responded on X: “The new immunity is to be a journalist.” He claimed journalists receive “total impunity.”

Based on Rosales’ testimony, the Audiencia Nacional released him. The Salvadoran government, which has made similar moves against at least two human rights defenders in Spain, has 40 days to present a formal extradition request.

Meanwhile, his asylum case is ongoing. “Nobody has granted me immunity anywhere in the world,” he said, adding: “Bukele says that Spain protects delinquents, but El Salvador pursues the innocent.”

This episode of Central America in Minutes was produced with support from the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives. It was written by Roman Gressier with sound design by Omnionn. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, iHeart, and YouTube.