Politics don't stop

 On February 1st we had the Presidential Elections in Costa Rica, with a disheartening result. If you believe in Democracy and the role of institutions as checks and balances  for Government, you certainly fear for this small country and its blind turn towards autocracy, extreme right and the plunge into a cesspool of misinformation. People in many parties are folding their flags, putting away their political paraphernalia and going back to their civil lives. And so I thought I would.

But, is politics just rallying for elections? Is that all we do? Many may think so, and there are others that want people to think so. Politics is just elections. Democracy is just elections. You go, you vote and that's it. Then politicians scream, do "political stuff", get paid, get rich, appear on TV and then people go vote again, and things start over again. And if something goes wrong, it's "politics". From prices to employment, from public health to the environment, everything that goes wrong or that we don't understand is "bad because of politics".

Politics seem to appear when something goes wrong and people can't understand why, and so "it has to be the fault of politicians", and that makes it "politics". What people fail to realize is that politics are far deeper embedded in daily life than they want to believe. 

Politics are in out education system, in the availability and shape our healthcare systems take. It's also in the price of every single thing we buy and whether we can even buy it in the first place. Politics shape our vacations, where we can go and how many days we have, and also in our jobs, whether we have one, how much are be paid, how many hours we work and in which conditions. As members of a particular society, the politics practiced in that place shape every single aspect of our lives. The question for us, people, is how much do we want to be part of those politics, and how much do we want to influence them.

I thought that, after February 1st my participation in the party would dwindle, but it only changed. We replace party t-shirts, flags and paraphernalia for notebooks and pens. Our political flyers are replaced for excel sheets and phones. Our work now is to recruit and holding informative sessions to explain our ideals and principles to those interested in forming part of the party.

We are working on brainstorming sessions, coming up with ideas of what can we do to improve our communities and determine what do we need to get to a better place as society. From creating content to inform and educate, to proposing workshops to help small entrepreneurs connect with new customers and navigate the fiscal system, we are changing the way we do politics. We are going to the community, to connect, to understand, to learn and to help.

And that is politics too.