Costa Rica president celebrates after effort to strip his immunity fails

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (AP) — Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves on Tuesday celebrated the failure of an effort by lawmakers in congress to strip his immunity so that he could be prosecuted for alleged corruption.

Chaves’ opposition needed a 38-vote supermajority, but only managed to obtain 34 votes in favor of lifting the president’s immunity. Twenty-one lawmakers voted against the effort and two more were absent.

It was the first time such a vote had occurred about a sitting president in Costa Rica’s history.

Prosecutors allege that Chaves pressured a video producer who had been awarded a contract by the Central American Bank for Economic Integration to give a portion of that money to a former campaign adviser.

Speaking at the opening of a health center in Carrillo in the northwestern province of Guanacaste on Tuesday, Chaves lashed out at lawmakers who voted against him, as well as the Supreme Court magistrates who had previously voted to send the case to congress. He characterized the effort as a “political show.”

“The positive part of this is that I woke up happy, I woke up hopeful,” Chaves said. “Because again the country respected the great majority of Costa Ricans who clamor to erase the historic error of some who tried to intimidate the president of the republic, and as a result, the enormous majority of the people who support me.”

Among Chaves’ targets was Attorney General Carlo Díaz, who pursued the case against him.

Díaz said in a statement Tuesday that he would respect the national Legislative Assembly’s decision and recognized that Chaves would remain safe from prosecution at least until his term ends in May.

“This doesn’t mean that the investigation is over, nor that the criminal action dies; the case will persist waiting for when the president doesn’t have immunity,” Díaz said.