Due to the political and electoral scenario of Costa Rica, known a few days ago, where Patricia Mora Castellanos, was appointed to occupy the postulation for the first Vice Presidency of the Republic of Costa Rica, leading as candidate for the Presidency José MaríaVillalta and as candidate for the second Vice-presidency, to Dr. Gerardo Hernández, director of the School of Political Sciences of the University of Costa Rica, at TCRN we decided to talk with Mora Castellanos, to find out her purposes in this new responsibility.
Let us remember that Patria Mora Castellanos was elected in 2020 as the most influential woman in Costa Rica, according to the list of Petra magazine. She was Minister of the Condition of Women with a political career in the leadership of the leftist FrenteAmplio, and in the parliamentary representation (2014-2018) of that group.
Previously, she presented her resignation as minister and criticized that during this Government there has been a setback in labor rights, the law against strikes and the proposed law to legalize inhumane days to the detriment of women.
TCRN present to her the question and answer section, so that she could express her opinion about it:
What purposes do you have for the new responsibility as a candidate for the first Vice Presidency of the Republic?
Actually, I have accepted the appointment with great pleasure because I believe that women should occupy relevant positions in political affairs and the central purpose of my new responsibility is to achieve, express and be a voice for sectors, in this case it will be fundamentally of half of the Costa Rican population, who are women, to be the voice of all those who are not listened to, of all those who do not have a microphone at hand, of all those who today have impoverished conditions, which should be filled with shame on this country.
Do you believe in the advancement of the theory and practice of communism, why?
I am going to allow myself to make a small digression, communism emerged in the nineteenth century, as a political, economic and social doctrine, whose central objective was at that time and continues to be today, to achieve, establish new agreements on which French philosophers today. They call it the Commune, that is, what belongs to all of us, what unites us as a society; establish a new agreement on the Commune from an idea of radical equality between human beings, this means, the idea of equal justice, this is not new, it takes shape in the economic and political writings of Karl Marx and of Frederick Engels in the 19th century.
The truth is that the communist idea, of a complete emancipation of humanity, had already been expressed in the slave revolts that Spartacus led, for example, or the struggles that our native peoples led in the Latin American continent to free themselves from a Spanish colonial yoke.
There is no recipe for a homogeneous communism with identical features, I was a member of the ranks of the Costa Rican Communist Party, founded and led by Manuel Mora Valverde, and that communism has been called Comunismo a la Tica, why? Because it is a communism that friends, enemies, Tyrians and Trojans recognize that it has been characterized by an absolute respect for the democratic order, of the so-called Costa Rican route.
Today, the President of the United States, Joe Biden, has recognized the need for states to intervene more actively in the economy by creating jobs, ensuring that they are worthy, participating in a more equitable redistribution of wealth, promoting measures to curb the climate disaster, to guarantee the minimum rights to all citizens regardless of sex, race or sexual orientation, to that Trump has classified him as “communist”.
As long as the world in which we live continues to be divided between a rich capitalist North and a poor and devastated South, while in our country, for example, there continue to be areas of poverty, of growing inequality, discrimination and exclusion of women and other socially vulnerable groups, following the destruction of the environment, a policy at the service of wealth and private businesses, which results in an increasingly apathetic and disinterested citizenship, I will continue to believe in the need to think in another global order, in the obligation to shape a new social pact that is guided by the values of equality, fraternity, freedom, respect for nature that is feminist and would have to say that communism is the name of a regulatory idea, it is the name of a utopian horizon, an intellectual model that allows conceiving another model of social organization.
Would you support future negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF)?
Well, yes, a negotiation proposed in terms of absolute respect for our sovereignty, of putting the interests of the majority of our country first, with the characteristics that ours has, which has an impoverished and weakened economy; From one moment to the next, Costa Rica may find itself in the scenario of having to carry out negotiations with international financial organizations, that is clear to us, what will not be accepted are impositions, nor that we are required to part with parts of our sovereignty.
Do you consider that there is still a lack in Costa Rica for women to be taken into account for positions of high responsibility?
Yes, here there is an obligation of parity and alternation, that ensures that ballots will not be registered if they do not have them. What happens is that women face many obstacles when it comes to wanting to get involved in public or political life, of course we have to go a long and wide path, still to achieve full equality between men and women, while not is achieved, we cannot aspire to have these highly responsible positions held by women.
Virtues and defects that you consider that Patricia Mora Castellanos has?
Many defects, virtues perhaps a maxim, which was the phrase most heard from my mother’s mouth and is “in this life what would be ashamed, is to be unfair or steal” and neither of those two things I have done. I am persistent and also honest.
Who has been your inspiration in political life?
I would say that it was even for reasons of age, the most outstanding head Manuel Mora Valverde, without a doubt, that thought that had absolute clarity that the first thing is to put the Costa Rican flag before it, to unite behind it, all of us who share some minimums that guarantee us to move towards a less exclusive, more egalitarian, more dignified country, where the humiliation of having more than 1 million citizens who cannot cover three meal times a day is eradicated.
What do you intend to leave as a legacy for Costa Rican women?
As a legacy to the Costa Rican woman, I would like you to know that you can trust, that I will not give up in this work, knowing that when we talk about pain, women know very well about it.
This was the interview with Patricia Mora Castellanos, who firmly answered each of our questions and makes her role as a candidate and possible first vice president in Costa Rica very clear, a woman who has a broad political and social career.
