The difficulty of recent governments to implement their policies has led to widespread disillusionment with Costa Rica’s democratic system, one of the oldest and most stable in Latin America. Over the last ten years the political parties have fought bitterly over which strategies to adopt, leaving many important reforms by the wayside. Economic growth has been inconsistent, poverty levels have not budged in 15 years, inequality has risen and voter abstention at the last elections reached 36% - up from 19% in 1962. Costa Rica’s traditional bipartisan politics have been replaced by a system in which many parties vie for power without offering genuine choice. Meanwhile, the political debate is dominated by rightwing “firefighting” agendas such as street crime, without questioning the neoliberal economic model that has failed to provide social wellbeing..

For most people paying their electricity bill is just a routine, but for a group from San Marcos it has become the source of political struggle. The battle between electricity supplier Unión Fenosa and the inhabitants of municipalities such as Malacatán and Tecun Uman has gone on for nearly six years, recently leading the authorities to call a state of emergency that still stands. The Resistance Front in Defense of the People and Natural Resources (FRENA) emerged to organize the locals and put an end to the alleged abuses of the Spanish multinational. As a result, five of its members have been killed in the last two years, the latest a 26 year old woman called Evelinda Ramírez, shot dead in her car a month ago. Scared of repeat attacks, FRENA members now prefer to withhold their identities.