Paid-off TSE employees said they confused PLN with PAC, PUSC, and PASE
Vote counters Maria Ramirez and Maria Ramirez Sanchez were retained for their aptitude.
SAN JOSE — Costa Rica’s unemployment rate shot up an entire percentage this week after Presidential candidate Johnny Araya fired hundreds of TSE workers he’d employed to rig the Feb. 2 elections.
Araya, who finished a surprise second in the presidential voting to Luis Guillermo Solis, said he was stunned to learn of the outcome and that he had to improvise a “happy with the result” speech and flash a fake runner-up smile at his campaign headquarters.
“I really don’t know what to say,” Araya said to a crowd of his disappointed supporters on election night. “I thought the result had been arranged and was all taken care of. By the voters, I mean. By the voters.”
Araya, who hired more than 900 part-time employees of the Supreme Elections Tribune to help him fix the vote, sent a mass e-mail to 757 of them this week to inform them they’d been let go. Coincidentally, those who kept their jobs were single women under the age of 28.
Employees fired by Araya have since come forward to out the attempted voter fraud and inform the Costa Rican public of the heinous corruption efforts by the PLN on election day. Many claim that, as the race tightened late in the day, the pressure from Araya drove them to lose composure.
“Araya would come by every hour or so and whisper in my ear ‘remember, corruption always wins,’ and slip a rojo into my pocket,” said Samuel Morelos, hired and fired Araya vote-fixer. “When I started to feel the pressure, I got so nervous, I just started eating all the vote slips.”
Others hired by Araya forgot what party he represented, claiming the excess acronyms beginning with P all sounded the same.
“I mean, PLN, PUSC, PAC, PASE. What’s the maldito difference?” Said Carlos Cienfuegos, who confessed to not giving a shit at all. “In the end I just put all the votes in PAC box because it reminded me of that cool arcade game.”
Though disappointed he did not win outright, Araya said he will stay the course of his plan and shamelessly attempt to rig the second round run-off vote on April 6. Araya has placed ads for potential vote manipulators in local newspapers and put up several billboards in the central valley that say “Voting for Johnny Pays Off,” with a photo of him putting money labeled PLN into a ballot box.
“Second chance to get this right! #GraciasaDios,” Araya tweeted this morning. “When You Won’t Accept Defeat…Cheat! #imnotacrook”
Araya said he will also continue to pay local newspaper La Nación and journalist Amelia Rueda to run disgraceful Pro-Araya stories on a daily basis.
El Pejibaye 