The politics of Costa Rica take place in a framework of a presidential, representative democratic republic, with a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the president and their cabinet, and the President of Costa Rica is both the head of state and head of government. Legislative power is vested in the Legislative Assembly. The president and 57 Legislative Assembly deputies are elected for four-year terms. The judiciary operates independently from the executive and the legislature, but is involved in the political process. Costa Rica has a strong system of constitutional checks and balances. Voting is compulsory de jure, but this is not enforced.
The National Liberation Party, nicknamed the verdiblancos, is a political party in Costa Rica. The party is a member of the Socialist International. Social-democratic by statute, the party has a few internal factions, including liberals, Third Way supporters, centrists, and social conservatives.
The Citizens' Action Party is a political party in Costa Rica.
The Social Christian Unity Party is a centre-right political party in Costa Rica.
The Costa Rican Renewal Party is a Christian political party in Costa Rica.
Democratic Force nicknamed “El Naranjazo” was a political party in Costa Rica.
General elections were held in Costa Rica on 5 February 2006. In the presidential election, Óscar Arias of the National Liberation Party, a former president and Nobel Peace Laureate, was victorious over Ottón Solís of the Citizens' Action Party and twelve other minor-party candidates. Although Arias was expected to win by a wide margin, the actual polling reports were unexpectedly close. However, early results showed the contest to be closer than it actually was. The preliminary official report, after 88.45% of the vote counted, showed the result for President of the Republic almost tied between Arias with 40.51% of the vote and Ottón Solís with 40.29%. Given the small difference of only 3250 votes, the Superior Electoral Tribunal announced that a manual count of all the votes would start immediately and no official winner would be announced until that process was completed, approximately two weeks after the election.
Ottón Solís Fallas is a Costa Rican politician. He graduated with a Bachelor of Economics from the University of Costa Rica in 1976 and gained a master's degree in economics from the University of Manchester in 1978. He is currently serving his second term as congressman, was a founding member of the Citizens' Action Party, and ran as its three-time presidential candidate. As an academic, he has taught at several universities in the United States and Costa Rica.
General elections were held in Costa Rica on 7 February 2010. The ruling party before the election, the center-left National Liberation Party, put forward former Vice-President Laura Chinchilla as its presidential candidate, while the libertarian, Movimiento Libertario nominated former legislator Otto Guevara. Opinion polls before voting started consistently put Chinchilla as the front-runner, a trend confirmed in the election-night count, which showed her garnering 46.76% of the vote.
General elections were held in Costa Rica on 2 February 1986. Óscar Arias of the National Liberation Party won the presidential election, whilst his party also won the parliamentary election. Voter turnout was 82%.
General elections were held in Costa Rica on 4 February 1990. Rafael Ángel Calderón Fournier of the Social Christian Unity Party (PUSC) won the presidential election, whilst his party also won the parliamentary election. Voter turnout was 81.8%.
General elections were held in Costa Rica on 6 February 1994. José María Figueres of the National Liberation Party won the presidential election, whilst his party also won the parliamentary election. Voter turnout was 81%.
General elections were held in Costa Rica on 1 February 1998. Miguel Ángel Rodríguez of the Social Christian Unity Party won the presidential election, whilst his party also won the parliamentary election. Voter turnout was 70%, the lowest since the 1950s.
General elections were held in Costa Rica on Sunday, 2 February 2014 to elect a new president, two vice presidents, and 57 Legislative Assembly lawmakers. In accordance with Article 132 of the constitution, incumbent President Laura Chinchilla Miranda was ineligible to run for a second consecutive term.
Luis Guillermo Solís Rivera is a Costa Rican politician and educator who was the 47th President of Costa Rica from 2014 to 2018. He is a member of the Citizens' Action Party (PAC).
A primary election was held among the members of Costa Rica’s National Liberation Party (PLN) on June 3, 2001 in order to choose PLN’s nominee for presidency in the 2002 general election. PLN was then the main opposition party facing then in government Social Christian Unity Party. This, as was common since the 70s, was an open primary and as such all Costa Ricans could vote in it with the only requirement be signing membership of the party moments before entering the polls.
General elections were held in Costa Rica in 2018 to elect both the President and Legislative Assembly. The first round of the presidential election was held on 4 February 2018, with the two highest-ranked candidates being Christian singer and Congressman Fabricio Alvarado Muñoz from the conservative National Restoration Party and writer and former Minister Carlos Alvarado Quesada from the progressive Citizens' Action Party, gaining 24% and 21% of the votes respectively. As no candidate received more than 40% of the first round vote, a second round run-off election was held on 1 April 2018 and was won by Carlos Alvarado Quesada, with a landslide victory of 60.6% of the vote.
Municipal elections were held in Costa Rica on Sunday, February 2, 2020, to elect all municipal offices in the country: mayors, aldermen, syndics, district councilors and the intendants of eight special autonomous districts, together with their respective alternates in all cases. These will be the fifth direct municipal elections since the amendment to the 1998 Municipal Code and the second to be held mid-term since the 2009 reform.
Calderonism or Calderonismo is a political and ideological doctrine of Costa Rica, which emerged in the 1940s under the leadership of caudillo Dr. Rafael Ángel Calderón Guardia, before, during and after he was president with his National Republican Party, and which was continued by various political forces such as Unity Coalition, National Unification Party and the current Social Christian Unity Party and its split the Social Christian Republican Party. It is together with Liberacionismo one of the two traditional political tendencies of Costa Rican politics, with which it represented a certain type of Costa Rican bipartisanship from 1986 to 2002 and revolves around the Calderón family. It is a form of populist and Catholic Christian socialism very similar to Argentine Peronism.
General elections were held in Costa Rica on 6 February 2022, to elect the president, two vice-presidents, and all 57 deputies of the Legislative Assembly. As none of the presidential nominees obtained at least 40% of the votes, a runoff was held on 3 April 2022, between the top two candidates, José María Figueres and Rodrigo Chaves Robles.
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