It is hard to find fault with Solís’ handling of this strike. He has not declared the strike illegal. He has been respectful, patient and sympathetic with the striking teachers, and he has proposed several solutions, the latest of which would provide a guarantee that affected teachers get exactly what they have demanded and deserve. It was not a strike Solís provoked, rather another annoying hangover of the inefficiencies of the former administration. But if no solution is soon forthcoming, it will become his strike, something one might imagine was the intention by those who created the mess in the first place. A president generally has a honeymoon period in which to begin to make changes and set his government’s agenda. Presidential scholars often suggest 100 days or three months as the time in which a president can do what he wants without too much interference from critics and opposition forces. As each valuable day passes, Costa Ricans are losing a chance for President Solís to implement the change he was overwhelmingly elected to bring. During the first months of the administration of U.S. President James Earl Carter (1977-1981), a mouse died in the walls of the White House and made the Oval Office unbearably smelly. Carter complained to the General Services Administration (GSA), who were responsible for cleaning the White House, but they claimed to have removed all the mice from within the White House, and that it was an issue for the Department of the Interior. Likewise, the Department of the Interior, responsible for any mice outside the White House but still on federal property, argued that as the mouse had died inside the walls of the White House this was a GSA problem. At his wit’s end, Carter called officials from both government agencies to his office and screamed, “Apparently I am not even able to get a miserable mouse out of my office.” The story of an entrenched set of bureaucratic actors unwilling to do their job, but quick to point the finger of blame at others, also sadly became one half of the bookends of apparent impotence associated with Carter’s presidency. The other bookend was Carter’s inability to negotiate the freedom of U.S. hostages from Iranian religious extremists who had stormed the U.S. Embassy. The danger as this strike continues is that despite the real causes behind it, the unknown agenda of the striking union leaders, the suspicious timing of MEP’s implementation of a faulty system, the possible element of electioneering to secure PLN legislative victories, and the rampant finger pointing of an entrenched bureaucracy, this will become the Solís administration’s strike. If it continues much longer, or escalates to a general strike, it will become associated with his presidency like a dead, smelly mouse in the wall.
Posted on: Sat, 24 May 2014 21:45:33 +0000
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