Abel Pacheco de la Espriella

Abel Pacheco de la Espriella (San José, December 22, 1933) is a Costa Rican doctor, psychiatrist, merchant, television personality and writer. He was the 44th president of the Republic of Costa Rica for the Social Christian Unity Party, during the period 2002-2006.

Biography

He was born in San José on December 22, 1933. Son of Abel Pacheco Tinoco, a banana farmer, and Marta de la Espriella Díaz-Granados, brother of Daniel, Rita, María, Carlos, and Claudio. He married Elsa María Muñoz Batha for the first time and Leila Rodríguez Stahl for the second. He has six children: Abel, Elsa, Yolanda, Sergio, Valeria and Fabián. He studied at the Buenaventura Corrales School and at the Los Angeles School. He graduated as a doctor from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, has a specialty in Psychiatry from the University of Louisiana. In his youth he was a follower of Dr. Rafael Calderón Guardia, and even participated in the 1955 attempted invasion of the Calderón forces defeated during the 1948 civil war.

He was director of the National Psychiatric Hospital (1973-1976), where he had worked for 16 years and where he managed to revolutionize Costa Rican psychiatry, giving it a more modern vision that vindicated the image of the mentally ill. During his tenure, he developed corporate social responsibility programs that enabled inpatients to gain employment and income while under treatment to continue supporting their family.

For many years beginning in 1976, he was very popular among the population because he hosted a television microprogram called "Comments with Dr. Abel Pacheco", which was on the air until 2001 when he began his run for the presidency, he also had other programs such as "Yesterday and today in history" and "National legends and traditions".

During the 1980s, he was a successful clothing merchant. He opened a store in downtown San José called El palacio del pantalón , remembered for its flashy television commercials for "furry fashion". Pacheco personally attended this business until 1994 when he decided to enter the political arena.

When Don Miguel Angel (Rodríguez) asked me to become president of the party and deputy, there everything changed, because the one who wants to store it. "

Since August 22, 2014, he is an honorary member of the Costa Rican Academy of Language.

Political life

In 1994, he entered political life seeking a position in the Executive Power, when he ran for First Vice President, on the ballot headed by Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, being defeated by José María Figueres.

In 1998 he was elected deputy to the Legislative Assembly. Due to the rejection of the population for some policies of the Rodríguez administration (1998-2002) such as the popularly known "Combo ICE" who sought the opening of the electricity and telecommunications market,^{[citation required]} and having been a well-known figure, due to his participation in television, emerges as the candidate with the widest majority support.

Thus, Pacheco was called the "people's politician" since his profile did not correspond to the profile of the traditional politician, but he launched a more personal campaign, where he was the representative of the typical Costa Rican, humble and good-natured, so much so that his campaign slogan was Vote for you.

Due to his health problems, as well as his age, uncertainty was created about his appointment as a candidate for the ruling Social Christian Unity Party, in addition to the fact that at that time the one who was leading the polls was the opposition Rolando Araya Monge of the National Liberation Party.

However, he managed to win support, under the slogan "The hour of the hug", where he distanced himself from traditional politics, even from the support of his own party, to start a campaign that led him to win the elections on February 3, 2002, with a margin of 38.6%, ultimately insufficient, since to be elected president, Costa Rican law requires a minimum of 40%.

In something unprecedented in the "New Republic" (after the Revolution of '48), the elections went to a second round, winning with a resounding 58% over second place Rolando Araya.

Presidency (2002-2006)

After his presidency

Pacheco gave support to the candidate of the Citizen Action Party Luis Guillermo Solís for the second round of the 2014 presidential elections and offered him the support of "abelismo" and even appeared in his advertising. In 2017 he gave him his support Rafael Ortiz seeking to win the PUSC candidacy for the 2018 elections. After Ortiz's defeat in the Convention, Pacheco remains in the Party and had no problem supporting his party's candidate, Rodolfo Piza, even appearing in his television commercials.

Books written

• Troop step
• A girl
• The Son of a Tree
• The hopper
• Counts of the Central Plateau
• Pacific accounts
• People without anchor
• From the Forest to the Embassy
• Lower skin (book of short stories, awarded in 1972 with Acquileo J. Echeverría recognition).