According to the Wall Street Journal, Costa Rican President Laura Fernández Delgado faces significant political opposition to her attempts to purge the independent judiciary of corruption.
Fernández claims that the judiciary has been infiltrated by narcotics-related organized crime. Upon taking office, he forced Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Justice, Orlando Aguirre, to resign, claiming that the judiciary needed “fresh blood” to deal with the rise of narcotrafficking and organized crime along Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast, where Puerto Limón is located. In recent years Puerto Limón has become a center for narcotics trafficking in Costa Rica. In July 2026, Fernández labeled the attorney general, Carlo Israel Díaz Sánchez, a “national disgrace” and called her political opposition “vagabonds and communists.”
Following on the heels of former president Rodrigo Chaves Robles, Fernández was elected to get tough on crime. The Partido de Liberación Nacional and the Partido Frente Amplio have criticized her crackdown, accusing her of attempting to impose a dictatorship on Costa Rica. The Fernández administration, which includes Chaves as minister of finance, is in the process of building a prison called El Centro de Alta Contención de la Criminalidad Organizad (CACCO), which is similar to El Salvador’s Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT). Fernández denied the claims made by her opponents, stating, “There is no “bukelization” here; what we have replicated is President Nayib Bukele’s model of maximum-containment prisons, because people deprived of liberty from within prison [an executive responsibility] continued to run their businesses, commit frauds, and order contract killings.”
While I have given you a little more detail than you will find in the WSJ article, the important take from this article is that the divide in Costa Rica centered on Costa Rica’s constitution and the issue militarizing its security services. Narcostates details that the long-standing trepidation in Costa Rica about developing a stringent counternarcotics program was based on the fear that the country’s police forces would become militarized and politicized. Despite having the Guardia Civil, which serves as a national police force, the existence of a standing military is strictly forbidden by Costa Rica’s constitution. Fernández’s crackdown on crime and her confrontation with the independent judiciary are coming into conflict over this issue.
Fernández won a large majority to pursue her law and order agenda and therefore believes she is fulfilling her elected duty. The pushback against her is asking at what expense to the constitution she is fulfilling her duty. Fernández has adopted the political tact of accusing her opposition of being in bed with narcotraffickers. While it is true elements within Costa Rica’s government and judiciary have been guilty of corruption in the past, not all of her opposition is working for organized crime.
Developing a prison system like El Salvador’s CECOT in Costa Rica will require increasing “authoritarian” measures. Then again, allowing crime to go unchecked would increase the growing lawlessness in Costa Rica. I reiterate, as pointed out in Narcostates, Costa Rica dragged its heels when it needed to develop a well-thought-out counternarcotics program. In addition the US failed to maintain its commitment to the Central America Regional Security Initiative (CARSI). When crime spiked at the turn of the decade (2020), Costa Rica found itself flat-footed. The current situation in Costa Rica resulted from its past decisions that were influenced by the tug of war over its constitution.
