CAFTA backlash in Costa Rica

The Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), which hurts small agricultural producers in the U.S. and Central America, has been dealt a blow in the recent presidential election in Costa Rica. Though the election is still too close to call, the anti-CAFTA candidate, Ottón Solis, an economist and former central-bank official, finished in a virtual dead heat with former president and Nobel Prize winner Oscar Arias, a CAFTA supporter.

Costa Rica is the longest surviving democracy in Latin America, has one of the highest literacy rates in the western hemisphere, and provides universal health care to all its citizens.

For more information on the election and its implications on CAFTA, go here.