Timeline - Recent History of Costa Rica Politics
- Stefania Dall'Armi
- Apr 23, 2020
- 3 min read
Updated: Apr 27, 2020
Costa Rica current President Carlos Alvarado1889 to 1948 - Costa Rica has the longest running democracy in Latin America. It strangely, but successfully, emerged in 1889 in a region of predominantly authoritarian regimes. The country was in the hands of the oligarchy of the coffee-grower elite, but soon the new middle and working class' forces started to challenge the system (1).
1948 - The Civil War lasted only few months and the country saw the victory of one coalition's leader Don Pepe Figueres. He became one of the most important political figures in Costa Rica not only because he was reelected president three times but also because he abolished the military, created a new constitution and nationalised the banking system (2).
1950 to 2000 - During these years the country grew at a steady pace. The government focused on the progress of every society sector such as social security, social assistance, free public education, widespread health coverage, and a system of pensions. Moreover, the nation started to focus on the respect for its citizens' human rights. For all of these reasons and the fact that Costa Rica possesses a stable economy, it has also earned itself the title
“Switzerland of Central America” (2).
New Century - From the beginning of the new century, Christians parties became quite popular not only in Costa Rica but in the whole Latin America region. It was happening the same in Brasil, for example, where the president and its party have had a lot of evangelical support. The main topics of conversation started to be the social issues which opposed the traditional Christian values such as abortion or gay marriage. Other topics, such as climate change, were instead poorly discussed (3).
2004 - In this year three former presidents Jose Maria Figueres, Miguel Angel Rodriguez and Rafael Angel Calderon were investigated over contractor payment and corruption. The topic of corruption has been taken seriously not only from the citizens who lost trust in their leaders, but also from other politicians, who wanted to regain their trust. Therefore, new political movements and alternative parties started to rise with a lot of strengths and support from the citizens. Suddenly, the Costa Rican Politics became quite fragmented and in just a few years the numbers of political parties in Congress increased from three to ten (4).
2006 - The president, Óscar Arias Sánchez was reelected for the second time. He received many prizes fro its effort towards the Central America crisis, such as the Nobel Peace Prize. Following the declaration for national emergency due to heavy rain and serious flooding the government took the first ambitious step to tackle the climate crisis and global warming. The president says Costa Rica on course to become first voluntarily "carbon neutral" country (4).
2018 - Due to the political fragmentation, reaching a total majority has been particularly hard in Costa Rica. The most recent elections in 2018 are no different. The two leading parties were led by Fabricio Alvarado – a Christian singer and candidate of the evangelical Restoration Party (PRN) with 3% support in opinion polls; and Carlos Alvarado (they are not close relatives) - former labour minister of the governing center-leaning Citizens Action Party (PAC), who got 21% in the final ballot (5).
Carlos Alvarado on the left and Fabricio Alvarado on the right2018 to present - The second round vote was won by Carlos Alvarado, with his twenty-year-old party Partido Action Ciudadanas (PAC) that got detached from the original liberal party, the one which originally abolished the army because of some scandals. It was mainly focused on anticorruption but it also started adopting progressiveness and discussing environmental issues as well. The President and minister of Environment & Energy, Carlos Manuel Rodríguez, are both leading experts on climate change (6).
(2) - Politics and Government
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