Precisely because Costa Rica is well-educated and has a large American community (many of whom benefit from negotiating around trade restrictions) there was a huge push by the media, the academy and anti-trade US politicians to derail this vote.
Bernie Sanders went down to visit on the eve of the vote to urge a rejection of CAFTA.
A ton of anti-trade money and anti-trade rhetoric was unloaded on CR in the runup to this vote.
Luckily, the citizens of CR were thinking long-term.
"That nearly half the public in Latin America's richest free-market democracy opposed CAFTA despite the intensive campaign in favor of it should end the repeated claims that pushing more NAFTA-style free trade deals is critical to U.S. foreign policy interests in the region or helps the U.S. image," said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch division and a longtime foe of the Bush administration's trade policies.That's good news, Lori, because it means 90% of the U.S. public rejected your pal, Ralph Nader.
I don’t know where did you get your information from, but no money ever got to us the costaricans who opposed CAFTA.
Actually to pay for a couple TV spaces we donated money and all records on donations were made public whereas for the pro-CAFTA people, money was just unloaded without any barriers at all and they kept the sources of their money hidden.
We are not communists nor anything alike. We do not like Fidel Castro, nor people like Venezuela’s president, but we grew up thinking of our own people well-being and that’s the way we rise our own children.
We just opposed an economic model where people is left behind for a few to get too much. Even in my case where I know it will be good for me and for my company it is just unacceptable.
For at least 2 months we had our country stuffed with pro-cafta publicity of any possible type. And the last 2 days before the referendum when it was forbidden to make any publicity, all local media was stuffed with “news” about what a huge mistake would be not to ratify CAFTA even from CNN news in spanish, and that along with a sustained pro-cafta fear campaign convinced a few for a positive vote.
That my friend, is the real reason for the narrow(3%) difference in votes.