Through past newsletters, our readers know of Costa Rican Congressman Otto Guevara, of the birth of the Movimiento Libertario in 1994 and of its electoral success in our first ry in 1998. Now we are pleased to report that such success continued in the February 3, 2002 elections a week ago. As this is being written, we have fairly certainly won 4 out of the 57 national Congressional seats, are leading by a small but relatively safe margin (277 votes) in a fifth race, and are trailing by only 9 votes in a sixth race. Costa Rica's compulsory vote recounts will determine the definitive winners by around March 15. Nationwide we received about 140,000 votes for Congress, which represents 9.33% of the total, and more than tripled the vote we got in 1998. For each of the 7 provinces, our totals ranged from 2.7% to 11.8% of the vote; and only in one province (our lowest) did we miss electing a Congressman by more than 2%.

If you wish to know more about these probable Congressmen as of next May 1, their pictures and resumés are in the English section of our website: www.libertario.org The first four are Federico Malavassi and Ronaldo Alfaro from San José province, Carlos Salazar from Alajuela province and José Francisco Salas from Heredia province. The one leading by 277 votes is Carlos Herrera from Cartago province; and the sixth possible Congressman, trailing by only 9 votes with 3 voting tables still not included, is Peter Guevara (Otto's brother) from Puntarenas province.

This would give Costa Rican Libertarians about 10% of the Congressional seats. In the U.S. this would be the equivalent of 10 U.S. Senators AND 44 U.S. Congressmen. We think that's enough to block Big Brother in many instances, and to score plenty of libertarian goals in the meantime! We are pleased with these results given that our realistic goal was to increase our Congressional seats, and will be VERY pleased if we win the sixth seat, which would meet our minimum goal. We knew that it was very remote that at this stage our Presidential candidate Otto Guevara would win the Presidency of the country, although at one point he attracted 10% of preferences.

Another good result of the election was that for the first time in history, all the "minor" parties together stopped either of the traditional parties' Presidential candidates from obtaining the required 40% to avoid a runoff, which will be on April 7. This has sent a very loud message to the bipartisan monopoly that has ruled this country for many years.

We also think that the Movimiento Libertario is proving that a principled, morally centered defense of libertarianism can attract many voters in a relatively short time. When we founded our party the libertarian philosophy was unknown in Costa Rica; and when Raúl Costales first asked today's most popular local Libertarian if he knew of the libertarian philosophy, Otto Guevara replied: "No, what the heck is that?" We have come a long way since then!

A factor that has us very excited is the great support we are receiving from young people, not only the youngest voters, but also high school and college students who will first vote in 2006. That support is understandable from many viewpoints, not least of which is that many young people are naturally rebellious, and libertarians are rebellious against the current political establishment, to say the least! But it's also the advance of technology that makes these young people more self reliant and unwilling to accept government control over their lives. Anyway, we will dramatically increase our activity in high schools and colleges starting in the near future.

As to our campaign strategy, during the first months we concentrated on a Presidential campaign through TV ads, starting last July 16. Since Otto had been chosen best Congressman in many public opinion polls and also by the news media, we had a positively rated spokesman. Still, only about 60% of the people knew him then; however, by the end of our campaign his name recognition rose to a "major league" 94.5%.

Our objective was to run a serious Presidential campaign that discussed libertarian ideas and would result in our being invited to a nationally televised debate with the traditional party candidates. We achieved that on January 7. And in his conclusion in that debate, Otto asked for support of our Congressional candidates, including appealing to viewers to split their vote, which is fairly common in Costa Rica. (That is, a vote for someone who really has a chance to win the Presidential race this time, but support for Congressional candidates from another party).

So when Otto's Presidential preference was pushing 10% and our Congressional preference was much lower, we changed our message, as we had planned all along, and became the only one of the four leading parties to seek almost exclusively the Congressional vote. The result was a fast decline in Otto's Presidential preference ("He won't win, he's still too young", etc.) and a big increase in what we were really seeking: Congressional preference. In the end Otto only got 1.68% of the Presidential preference (about 25,000 votes), but helped us achieve our main 2002 goal and laid the groundwork for 2006.

In terms of costs we had budgeted $200,000 for our campaign, and exceeded that by about 8.5% when we were able to raise the additional money to increase our TV presence during the key last campaign month. While only about 10% of the money came from overseas contributors, we thank each overseas "can do team" member for his/her support. Our TV campaign, including its production, absorbed 87% of our campaign costs; another 5% went to radio and newspaper ads during the last campaign days, and the remaining 8% was spent on flyers, brochures, billboards, flags, T-shirts, caps and bumper stickers. Nothing was spent on salaries or rent, for all Party work was done on a volunteer basis and all locales were donated, including a "headquarters" office in San José during the last 2 months of the campaign, soon to be dismantled.

Divided by the number of Congressmen we elected, the total campaign cost of $217,000 yields a per Congressman cost range of $36, 000 if we elect 6, $43,000 if we elect 5, and $54,000 if we elect 4 Congressmen, with $43,000 per Congressman elected being the current status.

The ironic thing is that as libertarians we refused any "government" funds for our campaign, the only party to do so; but per preliminary estimates we would have been entitled to $811,000, nearly 4 times what we spent! You can bet that soon we will publicize how inflated this "aid" is, as well as attacking the 3 bigger parties, the only ones that qualified for such funds and will receive them. In summary, no party even came close to getting a majority of Congressional seats (the leader only got a third). Further, 56 of the 57 seats are split among 4 parties, and we are one of them! This means that our negotiating power will increase significantly from our current 1 against 56, David versus Goliath situation. This should enable us to push forward some items in the libertarian agenda during the next 4 years, and to more effectively block sections of law bills that violate rights.

But most importantly, there will be an increased discussion of libertarian ideas throughout the country. The Movimiento Libertario is a topic of study for high school and college students, who regularly visit our Congressional office to learn more about libertarianism. And the news media gives libertarian positions a prominent place. Further, our website in Spanish includes current Congressional topics, our positions and proposals, libertarian comics (a favorite of ours), our book, the test to find out if one is a libertarian, and much more.

We will let you know when the Congressional recounts are finished which, as estimated above will be around next March 15. Until then, For liberty in our lifetime,