The election of populist President Rodrigo Chaves in 2022 has called into question Costa Rica’s reputation for democratic stability and peaceful tradition. As reflected in recent events, the group in power, led by Chaves, seems interested in delegitimizing and attacking institutions of horizontal accountability. The leader of the Executive has hatefully criticized the Legislative, Judiciary, the National Electoral Authority, and the Comptroller General.
Chaves’s verbal attacks show disdain for politically opposed forces but also general rule of law and constitutional norms. Chaves shows a consistent and coherent strategy of trash-talking democracy (Stokes, forthcoming), leading to a scenario of democratic backsliding. The strategy seems to be helping Chaves maintain popularity.
The country is approaching presidential elections at the beginning of the 2026. Cisneros, head of Chaves’s legislative bloc announced they still don’t have a party to compete, after breaking ties with Social Democratic Progress party. However, she expressed they expect to select a political heir due to the impossibility of seeking reelection and his solid popularity. Recent public opinion surveys show over 50% job approval for Chaves closing his third year in office.
Costa Rica is widely recognized for its democratic stability, peaceful power transitions, clean elections, and strong rule of law. Varieties of Democracy (V-DEM), Freedom House, and the Global State of Democracy Initiative consistently rank the country as a solid democracy. Costa Rica’s Executive Branch has fewer powers and competencies than most regional counterparts; therefore, political collaboration with other branches of government is essential for advancing a presidential agenda.
Chaves has adopted a confrontational stance toward Congress, openly diminishing its authority and that of opposition deputies through both rhetoric and actions. In other historical contexts of political fragmentation, past presidents have worked through contextual, thematic, or long-term alliances with opposition party blocs to advance their agenda in Congress.
Chaves discarded the legislative coalition’s strategy and has relied on executive decrees to push his agenda as far as possible. Furthermore, he has frequently criticized his political adversaries in Congress in weekly press conferences, collectively and individually. In response, opposition parties have turned to mechanisms such as special committees and information requests to scrutinize executive actions; in some cases, they have sent inquiries to the Judiciary.
Two recent events highlight the intensifying conflict between the Executive and legislative branches in one of Latin America’s long-standing democracies. First, Chaves dismissed a majority censure vote against the Minister of Education, a high-level mechanism meant to exercise control over the Executive by signaling the loss of confidence from the legislative to a cabinet member. Chaves qualified the vote as irrelevant and instructed the Minister to remain in office, disregarding congressional authority when claiming a shift in education policy.
Second, Chaves announced that he wouldn’t appoint a replacement for the Ministry of the Presidency until the President of Congress was changed in the upcoming annual election. The Ministry of Presidency is in charge of the relationship with Congress. In his statements, Chaves accused the President of Congress, Rodrigo Arias, of being a liar who dishonors the position and described appointing a new minister to liaise with Congress as a waste of time and resources. Arias, who wants to be reelected as President of the Legislature for the last year of the constitutional term, now faces Chaves’ public opposition.
Regarding the relationship with the Judiciary, the Executive’s criticism of Supreme Court judges, and especially the Attorney General, escalated to a call for protest from the President demanding the Attorney’s resignation. The Executive has framed the Judiciary as the Branch to blame for the security crisis, citing the rise in the homicide rate from 12.2 in 2022 to over 15 in the second and third years of the administration. Undermining the legitimacy of the 104 investigations related to cases in which he is accused of corruption and misuse of campaign funds seems to be a central motivation for attacking the Judiciary. His message to protesters was that the Judiciary is planning a Judiciary coup d’état.
Chaves also accused the National Electoral Court of planning a “legalist” coup d’état. After a group of political party leaders—from a broad ideological spectrum—presented a public electoral appeal accusing Chaves of violating his constitutional prohibition to address electoral issues, the National Electoral Court analyzed the appeal, ordered a preliminary investigation, and is currently processing it. In this attack, he frames a particular electoral judge, accusing her of adjusting the appeal to fulfill the procedural requirements to be admitted.
His attempt to weaken the Comptroller General’s mandate through trash-talking included a different mechanism. First, he trash-talked the institution, accusing it of paralyzing public infrastructure development and calling it an institution that “co-governs.” The second step of the strategy was to request Congress and the National Electoral Court to carry on a referendum for people to vote on a previously elaborated bill proposal to weaken the Comptroller General’s mandate. The referendum request included other bill proposals that Congress rejected in the first place or was processing. However, technical, legal, and procedural elements blocked the referendum from being held.
Public opinion does not seem concerned by trash-talking democracy to delegitimize institutions of horizontal accountability. Instead, it seems to favor it. Two recent public opinion surveys confirm this. One survey conducted in March 2025 and published by National University showed that 60,2% and 59,3% of people support the criticisms made by Chaves to the Legislative and Judiciary Branches, respectively. When asked about the way the President expresses himself regarding “other branches of government and public institutions,” 50,7% show support for the Executive’s head.
Close to finishing his third year in office, Chaves and his government remain with 54% and 50% of positive reviews, respectively, according to a survey conducted by the University of Costa Rica. Is trash-talking democracy going to be the winning strategy in 2026?
Hi, Eugenia!
The title immediately caught my attention, with the irony of combining democracy and trash-talking as a political style. Your article left me thinking on the strategies of populists like Chaves. What stood out to me the most was how trash-talking has become a political strategy. Instead of working with other branches of government, as the article outlines, Chaves uses his popularity to attack and delegitimize institutions of horizontal accountability.
This reminded me of Jan-Werner Müller’s discussion on populism, especially his argument that populism is inherently anti-pluralist. According to him, populists divide society into two antagonistic camps and reject the idea that democracy should include many different voices. That’s what’s scary about Chaves’s approach. By constantly pushing out any opposition, he’s creating an “us vs. them” mentality. It is also concerning how much public support this rhetoric receives, especially considering Costa Rica’s long history as a strong democracy. This populist strategy fuels feelings of resentment, creating divisions in society and reducing healthy debates among political spheres, which essentially undermine democracy.
However, Müller also points out that populism can sometimes aid democratic consolidation as it works well in empowering the powerless, and including those who feel disenfranchised from the political sphere. Maybe, Chaves’s rise is a reflection of the systemic issues in Costa Rica, that is, people feel ignored or frustrated with the system. Populists are often good at including people who feel left out, but that shouldn’t come at the cost of attacking democratic institutions.
Lastly, I like how you end your article with a big question. While reading your work, I have also found myself with these questions: can Costa Rica bounce back and return to their streak of stable democracies? Or is this the beginning of a shift toward autocratization? With elections coming up, it’ll be interesting, and worrying to see whether this “trash-talking democracy” strategy will work in 2026.
Hello! Thank you for your in-depth discussion on Chávez and his strategies for consolidating power. I appreciate how you provided multiple examples to illustrate how he used trash-talking as a political tool to assert dominance and influence public perception.
Chávez reminds me a lot of former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who had a similar public persona. He also used strong language to attack his critics, which reflected the broader actions and tone of his administration. Many of his opponents were delegitimized, and some were even imprisoned. This highlights how powerful language can be, especially when wielded by someone in a high position of authority.
I’m also particularly interested in how the public responds to these kinds of leaders. As a characteristic of populism, this kind of strong, confrontational language often feels like a breath of fresh air to many people. It makes these leaders appear more relatable, as if they are voicing the frustrations of ordinary citizens. However, while this may boost their popularity, it can also have harmful consequences for democratic institutions and norms.