The independent Estado de la Nación (State of the Nation) program released its 15th annual report Tuesday morning with the hopes of painting an objective picture of Costa Rica.

The 400-plus-page report discusses the country's political, social, economic and environmental issues. Its authors and editors anchored this year's edition to the global crisis, which it states “hit Costa Rica with force at the end of 2007 and the beginning of 2008.”

Miguel Gutiérrez, director of the program, acknowledged that many of the effects of the crisis had yet to be endured and calculated, but that the 2008 State of the Nation attempts to “offer a real and pragmatic perspective of the impact it has had on Costa Rica and the country's ability to respond to difficult times.”

In several areas, the country seemed to stumble through 2008 and the first half of 2009.

The government spent more than it made from January to May of 2009. Homicides per capita jumped to their highest number in the small nation's recorded history.

Also, new calculations indicate that Costa Rica is leaving a larger ecological footprint on the earth than the country has the capacity to erase.

Poverty and unemployment are up and the gap is widening between Costa Rica's social classes.

But not all is bad in the Switzerland of Central America.

More citizens are receiving public health coverage than ever before and the number of students who drop out of high school is falling.

The study determined that 2008 was a calm political year with few tensions, following a year in which strain and hostility over the Central American Free-Trade Agreement with the United States dominated the political scene and tore apart familiar alliances.

And in the face of a myriad of problems coupled with the several successes that the report highlights, Gutiérrez said he hopes the answer to the crisis comes from careful decision making.

“We are facing a crisis unlike the one we saw in the '80s and our society and our government made large mistakes during that crisis,” he said. “The primary goal of Estado de la Nación is to produce a quality report about the reality of our society. If decision makers are to take anything away from this report, it is that they must continue to invest in the country's people and its infrastructure.”

See the Nov. 6 print or digital edition of The Tico Times for an in-depth look at the latest State of the Nation report.

Almost a year after the allegedly fraudulent Nov. 9, 2008 municipal elections redefined Nicaraguan democracy, the opposition majority in the legislature pushed forth an initiative Tuesday to annul last year's contentious poll.

The bill is now in the hands of the National Assembly's Justice Commission, headed by Liberal Constitutional Party lawmaker José Pallais.

“We are going to give priority to this bill with the intention of submitting it to the floor for a vote before the legislative session ends for the year on Dec. 15,” Pallais told The Nica Times.

Pallais said that if the opposition is able to hold together, it should have enough votes to pass the bill into law, thereby annulling last year's elections and initiating a whole new election process after new electoral authorities are appointed next year.

“However,” Pallais hedged, “we are expecting that the Sandinista Front will set all sorts of traps and delay tactics and try to divide the opposition to keep this bill from going to a vote.”

But yesterday, at least, the opposition was able to set the tone and override the will of Sandinista lawmakers.

The opposition also scored another minor legislative victory Tuesday by approving a resolution stating that Nicaragua does not recognize any public debt from Venezuelan aid under the auspices of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA). Though President Daniel Ortega has insisted that ALBA aid does not represent any public debt for Nicaragua, the lack of transparency with which the Venezuelan funds are administered has raised serious doubts and speculation about how ALBA works, and what it is.

What remains to be seen is whether the opposition also will follow through on its promise to introduce a law to overturn the controversial Oct. 19 ruling by Sandinista judges to scrap a constitutional ban on consecutive presidential re-election. The opposition lawmakers first attempted to present the initiative Oct. 28, but their alliance wavered at the last minute and they didn't have the votes to put the bill on the congressional agenda (NT, Oct. 30).

However, following Tuesday's unusual show of life from the opposition, some are now feeling slightly more optimistic that the re-election annulment law will get a second chance.

Pallais said that the “ideal situation” would be if the opposition could push both the election and re-election annulment laws to a vote before the end of the year.

But analysts claim that, ultimately, there is only a slim chance Nicaragua's serious governability problems can be resolved by the National Assembly.

Under Nicaraguan law, any conflict of powers between branches of government – such as that which would occur if the legislature passed a bill annulling a judicial ruling, or by overriding an election – is resolved in the Sandinista-controlled Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court, the same authorities responsible for the re-election ruling (NT, Oct. 23).

The red ribbon on the final wing of the Multiplaza Escazú was snipped on Monday, allowing shoppers to enter and peruse the last installment of the massive shopping center, west of San José.

The final stage of the Multiplaza consists of 86 stores in an area of 100,000 square meters.

As of Monday, only a handful of the 86 stores were opened for business, including EPK and Baby Boom, which held an inauguration for their children's clothing stores Monday night.

According to Elisa Rojas, a spokesperson for Grupo Robles, which constructed the Multiplaza, almost all of the 86 stores are expected to be opened in two weeks. The final wing of the Multiplaza will include such fashion heavyweights as Armani Exchange, Rosa Clara and Massimo Dutti.

According to Rojas, approximately 900 employees will work in the mall's new wing. The Multiplaza, which opened in 1992, estimates that it sees 120,000 visitors each week.

“We hope that Mulitplaza Escazú will provide us the opportunities to grow and succeed,” said Cristina Caicedo, general manager of EPK. “It is a good place for us to continue our goals of creating quality products and a fair price.”

EPK, which has French origins, hopes to expand from the Multiplaza location, aiming to create three more Costa Rica store locations in the next four years.

Costa Rica's Supreme Court Chamber of Civil and Administrative Law (Sala Primera) suspended the evacuation and demolition of Las Palmas Hotel and Hotel Suerre in Punta Uva on the Caribbean coast near Puerto Viejo on Monday afternoon, the day before environment authorities planned to topple the buildings.

The Ministry of the Environment, Energy and Telecommunications (MINAET), which seeks the hotels' demolition for allegedly harming the environment, was notified of the resolution on Tuesday morning.

The court issued a “provisional preventative measure” and demanded more time to analyze the situation before making a decision. Court officials scheduled a public hearing for all involved parties for Nov. 27.

Both structures are located within the Gandoca-Manzanillo National Wildlife Refuge. MINAET claims that the construction and operation of the hotels has caused ecological damage.

In 1993, MINAET, then called the Ministry of Natural Resources, Energy and Mines, revoked the occupancy permits for the buildings. The Sala Primera ordered the eviction and demolition of the properties in 2001.

Since the order, the case has been suspended by 11 injunctions, two lawsuits, one habeas corpus writ and Monday afternoon's ruling.

More than 120 officials – police, firemen and coast guard – arrived at the site of the hotels on Tuesday at 9:30 a.m, prepared to combat possible conflicts. The Public Works and Transport Ministry sent bulldozers and excavation machinery to demolish the edifices. All was for naught.

The man coordinating the $87 million redevelopment project in Costa Rica's Caribbean port city of Limón has been tapped to replace Karla González as minister of public works and transport.

González stepped down last week, following a bridge collapse that killed five people in Costa Rica's central Pacific region.

Marco Vargas, the current minister of inter-institutional coordination, will pick up where González left off, President Oscar Arias said Tuesday at the inauguration event of a new business in Alajuela.

“He has been close to the ministry in the past,” Arias said. “In fact, he was very close with the former minister so he is very familiar with the issues of infrastructure and transportation.”

Vargas, 61, has over 25 years of experience in the private sector and has served as minister of inter-institutional coordination, production minister and economic minister. He will continue to head up the project in Limón, but will divide his time between the positions.

Arias said Vargas will have the opportunity to choose his vice minister because “the idea is that he feel comfortable with the people he works with.”

Vargas will step in after a dramatic departure by the former public works and transport chief. González told reporters, “ The truth, pure and simple, is that today, explanations – even the most logical and rational ones – are no good because it would deprive the pain of many and serve the interest of a political few.

“I sympathize with the feelings of anger against the State and against the Public Works and Transport Ministry that failed them.” (See an English translation of González' resignation speech here).