National Liberation Party

The National Liberation Party (PLN) is a Costa Rican political party that is situated between the center, center-left, and center-right of the political spectrum. of social democrat. It is one of the two traditional parties in the country and the oldest of the current political parties legally registered before the Supreme Election Tribunal. It is the first opposition force in the Legislative Assembly of Costa Rica, where it also has the largest fraction.

Founded on October 12, 1951, it traces its origins to the unification of the Social Democratic Party and the National Liberation Movement, after a civil war arose in the country between two sides, the alliance of the Calderonistas (social Christians) and communists, and the alliance of opponents that included sectors of the national oligarchy, coffee growers, intellectuals and social democrats, among whom was José María Figueres Ferrer, of the Democratic Action Party, who led the National Liberation Movement and led to victory. Subsequently, the party would position itself as one of the two representatives of the two-party system in the country, alternating in power with the Christian Social Unity Party until its collapse in the first decade of the century XXI, when other parties would take more significant roles in Costa Rican politics.

Since its founding, 7 liberationists, through 9 presidential elections, have served as president of Costa Rica, the most recent being Laura Chinchilla Miranda, who was elected as the 46th president through the 2010 presidential elections, placing herself as the first Costa Rican woman elected to that position since women were allowed to vote in 1949. In the 2022 presidential election, the party, through the candidacy of José María Figueres, would obtain second place in the runoff, being the first time in the history of the party that is out of power for three consecutive periods. Currently, after the 2022 legislative elections and the 2020 municipal elections, the party has 19 seats in the Legislative Assembly. In addition, it holds the mayorship of 42 cantons in the country, including the capital city, as well as 186 councilors in the different Municipal Councils.

The political tendency of the political party is called liberationism. He is also a member of the Socialist International and the Permanent Conference of Political Parties of Latin America. It also has a youth organization, the Liberationist Youth, as well as a student organization, the Liberationist University Movement.

History

Background

Within the national ideological political movement of the 1940s was, on the one hand, the Center for the Study of National Problems; a slightly older generation, from the politeness (Democratic Party), And on the other hand, there were other groups that were also dedicated to the study of national problems and proposing approaches; among them, what they called Grupo de Don Ángel Coronas, which in 1943 published the Ideario Costarricense.^{[citation required]}

In 1938, a group of students from the Law School met to become a group that would study the country's student problems. This group was called the Law Students Association. Later, they organized and formed the University Student Council, whose president was Jorge Rossi Chavarría. In 1940, they became interested in forming a group that would have national projection, which they called, under the guidance of Professor Roberto Brenes Mesén and the thought of Rodrigo Facio Brenes, the Center for the Study of National Problems.

On July 8, 1942, José María Figueres Ferrer, through the radio station, Radio América Latina, presented a speech, where he denounced acts of corruption by the government of Rafael Ángel Calderón Guardia at that time. Without being able to finish his speech, official authorities take over the station and Figueres is arrested and imprisoned. Four days later he is sent into exile. He returned to Costa Rica in 1944 and joined the forces opposing the government, which won the 1948 elections, however, the Constitutional Congress decided to annul the opposition's victory.

Meanwhile, the Center for the Study of National Problems had begun its expansion to the rest of the country, and in the elections of that year, 1944, it took on the task of analyzing the approaches and ideologies of the two parties with option of victory, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party of Dr. Rafael Ángel Calderón Guardia at that time in power.

The Center decided to merge with the Democratic Action group, and formed the Social Democratic Party, on March 10, 1945, with the motto: "Liberty and Social Justice".

Because the 1948 elections were annulled, the so-called Revolution of '48 took place between two sides, the alliance of Calderonistas (social Christians) and communists led by Rafael Ángel Calderón Guardia and Manuel Mora Valverde respectively, and the alliance of opponents which included sectors of the national oligarchy, coffee growers, intellectuals, social democrats, among others. Mainly led by Otilio Ulate Blanco of the conservative National Union Party, and José Figueres Ferrer, of the social democratic Democratic Action, who headed the National Liberation Army. The civil war was finally won by the figuerista side.

In 1949, Figueres, in his role as head of the governing board, during his administration nationalized the Bank, decreed the abolition of the army, women's suffrage and the end of racial segregation towards people of African descent. He hands over power to the legitimate winner of the elections Otilio Ulate Blanco.

The members of the Social Democratic Party and the members of the National Liberation Movement unite, and on October 12, 1951, in the canton of San Ramón, the National Liberation Party was founded. The most notable founders were: José Figueres Ferrer, Francisco José Orlich Bolmarcich, Jorge Rossi Chavarría, Daniel Oduber Quirós, Rodrigo Facio Brenes, Eugenio Rodríguez Vega and others.

Dominant party

It participated for the first time as an official political party in 1953, running for José María Figueres in an election where only one other candidate stood, Fernando Castro Cervantes of the Democratic Party. Both Calderonism and communism were outlawed. Figueres won with 64% of the votes. For the next four-year period, the first internal division takes place. Jorge Rossi Chavarría loses in the internal elections against José Francisco Orlich and his followers (the & # 34; Rossista faction & # 34;) separate from the PLN and form the Independent Party, so social democracy goes separate to the elections. Rossi obtained 10% of the votes and in the end the right-wing opposition candidate, Mario Echandi Jiménez, won over Orlich with 46% of the votes. Echandi had promised during the campaign that if he won he would bring back Dr. Calderón Guardia who was exiled in Mexico and the rest of the Calderón family, with which he absorbed the Calderonist vote. He kept his word and in addition to allowing Calderón's return, he began a process of national reconciliation, although the left was still outlawed.

With Calderonism once again legalized, Calderón ran as a candidate in 1962, but was defeated by Orlich who won with 50% of the votes in a campaign in the middle of the Cold War and with the recent Cuban revolution where the main candidates were They accused each other of having links with communism (Calderonism for having been an ally of the communists before '48 and liberationism for its socialist nature).

During the Orlich administration, Costa Rica was introduced into the Central American Common Market (CACM), the building of the National Children's Hospital was built, the construction of the buildings of the Supreme Court of Justice in SAn José and that of the Central Bank of Costa Rica.

In the 1966 elections, the PLN once again joined the opposition when they were defeated by the candidate of the National Unification Party, José Joaquín Trejos Fernández, who had the support of Calderón Guardia and Otilio Ulate Blanco, Calderón's former enemy. and ally of Figueres who, however, reversed his loyalties from the fifties onwards. Trejos, as a candidate supported equally by Calderonism, ulatism and Echandism, defeated the liberationist candidate Daniel Oduber Quirós. Trejos, with a liberal ideology, had to govern with a minority in the Assembly and proposed the liberalization of the Banking, but his proposal did not find support in Parliament where the PLN had a majority.

Figueres is re-elected president in the 1970 elections, becoming the only person during the Second Republic, so far, to have been president three times (although only twice was he by democratic means).

The breakup of Carazo

In the seventies the second great break occurred since the departure of Rossi, when the former deputy, former president of Congress and former secretary general of the PLN, Rodrigo Carazo Odio, left the PLN and founded his own party; Democratic Renewal, being a candidate for himself.

In the following elections in 1974, the winner was Daniel Oduber Quirós, also a liberationist, which is why the opposition began to realize that the PLN was the largest party in the country and that only together they could defeat it. As a result of this, conversations began between Rodrigo Carazo, Rafael Ángel Calderón Fournier (son of Calderón Guardia and leader of the Calderonista Republican Party), José Joaquín Trejos who at that time was a member of the Popular Union Party, Mario Echandi, Jorge González Martén of the Party National Independent and Carlos Araya Guillén of the Christian Democratic Party, that is, practically the entire opposition except the Marxist left, to form a coalition. Although neither Echandi nor Martén, who present a separate candidacy, would ultimately belong to this party, the rest of the parties make up the Unity Coalition, victoriously nominating Carazo for 1978.

Daniel Oduber had introduced a constitutional reform to the Legislative Assembly that allowed the left to once again register to participate in the elections. Already in 1974 the Socialist Action Party, founded by a former liberationist, Marcial Aguiluz Orellana, who had fought against the communists during the civil war but later sympathized with them, had opened its ranks so that figures from the old left of Vanguardia Popular could participate and even the communist leader during the civil war, Manuel Mora, was a presidential candidate for PAS. Already for the 1978 elections, communism was re-legalized thanks to the reforms instigated by Oduber, Vanguardia Popular re-registered as a party and nominated the ex-liberationist doctor Rodrigo Gutiérrez Sáenz. During the Oduber government, the port of Caldera and a large number of national parks were founded.

Bipartisan period

By the 1982 elections, the country was devastated by a serious international economic crisis and was on the brink of war with Nicaragua due to the conflict in that country. As a result of this, the PLN candidacy in the person of Luis Alberto Monge Álvarez obtained one of the most resounding victories in liberationist history with 58% of the votes (almost close to the 60% that Figueres obtained in 1953). Monge promulgated the neutrality law that declared Costa Rica a neutral country in all wars and conflicts.

In 1986 the candidate is Óscar Arias Sánchez, who did not have good relations with the then president Monge, however Arias defeated Carlos Manuel Castillo Morales in the primaries (a candidate supported by figuerismo and mongismo) and then won the elections. elections campaigning for peace and criticizing Monge for his militaristic stance towards Sandinista Nicaragua. Arias would later help negotiate the peace agreements that pacified Central America, which would earn him the Nobel Peace Prize.

In 1990, the PLN returned to the opposition when Rafael Ángel Calderón Fournier of the Christian Social Unity Party (product of the merger of the Unidad Coalition) defeated its candidate Carlos Manuel Castillo in the elections. In 1994, José María Figueres Ferrer's son, José María Figueres Olsen, is a candidate for the PLN and wins over Miguel Ángel Rodríguez Echeverría of the PUSC. It is during this period of the nineties and during the Arias and Figueres administrations that criticism began to arise towards the PLN, accusing it of having lost its social democratic direction and of implementing neoliberal and Washington Consensus policies. Figueres, for example, is singled out by the implementation of the country's first Structural Adjustment Plans. The close relationship of bipartisan cooperation between the PLN and the PUSC is also beginning to be criticized with a series of agreements such as the Figueres-Calderón Pact and weak or permissive oversight when one of the two parties was an opposition that, according to its critics, caused an atmosphere of mutual complicity in the face of corruption. In this period of rigid bipartisanship, the pejorative term PLUSC was coined to jointly refer to the two largest parties.

The 1997 National Liberationist Convention was held between the pre-candidates José Miguel Corrales Bolaños and Jorge Walter Coto Molina, both with leftist tendencies, with the former winning. However, Corrales would lose to Miguel Ángel Rodríguez (candidate of the liberal wing of the PUSC) in 1998, making accusations of electoral fraud and that a private survey that was unfavorable to him was published on election day itself, discouraging voting. As a result As a result, Costa Rican legislation was modified and pollsters are currently prohibited from publishing data a few days before the elections.

Breakdown of the two-party system

In the year 2000, the third great schism in liberationist history occurred with the emergence of the Citizen Action Party (PAC), founded by very important figures from the historical ranks of the PLN, among them Ottón Solís Fallas (former minister, former deputy and pre-candidate in the nineties), the former first lady Margarita Penón Góngora, Arias' ex-wife, the writer and former deputy Alberto Cañas, etc. The PAC would eventually become one of the country's main political forces and one of the largest parties, even surpassing the PUSC in the 2006 and 2010 elections, and the PLN itself in the 2014 and 2018 elections.

Walter Coto was also an independent candidate, through the leftist coalition Cambio 2000, but he obtained less than 1% of the votes and had no deputies.

In 2001, a new convention was held, this time the pre-candidates were Rolando Araya Monge, José Miguel Corrales again, and Antonio Álvarez Desanti, the first being the winner. While in the PUSC, then the ruling party, the winner was the well-known doctor and television personality Abel Pacheco de la Espriella, then a deputy. Pacheco was a charismatic and populist character whose candidacy had emanated from the bases and not from the Calderonist leadership, while Araya was weakened by associations that had been made to his tendency with drug trafficking and the recent break with the Ottonism that had founded the PAC. Pacheco would defeat Araya in both the first and second rounds, becoming president and the PLN would suffer the worst defeat in its history until then with only 33% of the votes.

In 2004, a controversial resolution of the Constitutional Chamber readmitted presidential re-election, allowing former president Óscar Arias to be a candidate. Arias' candidacy, however, has a polarizing effect on the PLN, the three pre-candidates from the previous election; Araya, Corrales and Desanti, all leave the PLN for other political options. Corrales co-founded the Patriotic Union Party and Desanti founded the Union for Change Party, but both parties would have no electoral revenue nor would they obtain deputies.

Arias, for his part, supported the Free Trade Agreement with the United States (FTA), opposed by nearly half of the population and a good number of liberationist sectors (such as Luis Alberto Monge, Rolando Araya, among others). Ottón Solís of the PAC opposed the treaty, advocating a renegotiation. Also around this time, the Caja-Fischel and ICE-Alcatel corruption scandals were revealed, tarnishing the image of former presidents Miguel Ángel Rodríguez Echeverría, Rafael Ángel Calderón and José María Figueres, with the first two even being arrested and prosecuted. Figueres, abroad, only returned to the country when the causes had expired.

Due to these scandals and the unpopularity of the Pacheco administration, the PUSC suffered a severe electoral debacle (its candidate Ricardo Toledo Carranza obtained 3% of the votes). The issue of the FTA polarized the opposition, voters in favor mostly voted for Arias and those against for Solís of the PAC in very close elections where both candidates had a technical tie (42% over 41%) and after an exhaustive count of votes Arias was declared president, although there were accusations of electoral irregularities.

Post-bipartisan period

In the 2009 convention, the vice president of the Republic Laura Chinchilla Miranda defeated the mayor of San José, Johnny Araya Monge, becoming a presidential candidate and winning over Ottón Solís of the PAC in the 2010 elections, thus becoming the first woman president from Costa Rica. The Chinchilla administration suffered from a large number of corruption scandals and challenges, irregular situations in terms of public works management and unpopular policies, to the point that for three consecutive years she was the worst valued president in America and obtained very low margins. approval rating in public opinion, around 12% according to statistical surveys.

In 2012 there were four candidates to be the presidential candidate of the PLN; Rodrigo Arias (brother and minister of the presidency of Óscar Arias), Johnny Araya, Antonio Álvarez Desanti and Fernando Berrocal Soto, however, given the overwhelming support that Araya received in the polls, the other candidates withdrew their aspirations and Araya registered as single candidate without primaries.

In the subsequent presidential elections of 2014 it is the second most voted party, after the Citizen Action Party, suffering the worst electoral result in its history; 29% popular support (even lower than the results obtained in the 2002 elections) and one of the smallest parliamentary groups in its history, although the largest in the plenary, being able to go to the second round against the pacist candidate Luis Guillermo Solís. Araya resigned from continuing the electoral contest claiming that the statistical polls conducted by the party were not favorable to him. Despite Araya's resignation, the president of the party Bernal Jiménez Monge, the political board and the candidate for vice president Jorge Pattoni Sáenz maintained the campaign. Araya would lose in the runoff, receiving 22% of the votes against Solís, who obtained 78% in an election with 43% abstentionism.

For the 2018 elections, the party holds its National Convention in 2017, with the main candidates being the deputy, former minister and former president of the Assembly, Antonio Álvarez Desanti, and the former president José María Figueres Olsen, representatives of the arista and figuerista respectively. Both had difficult positions since on the one hand Desanti had resigned from the PLN years ago, questioning it ethically and ideologically and had been the Campaign Manager in 2014 when the worst defeat in its history occurred until then. Figueres, for his part, was burdened by the scandal of the Caja-Fischel Trial that occurred during his administration. Desanti defeated Figueres in the primary, but subsequent negotiations between tendencies were unsuccessful in reaching a unity agreement, so Figueres did not participate in the campaign. Desanti would lose the elections, obtaining only 18% of the votes and coming in third place., being the first time since it was founded that the party was not one of the two most voted. In the 2018 presidential election, the party, through the candidacy of Antonio Álvarez Desanti, would obtain third place after the vote count, being the first It is the first time in the history of the party that it obtains this position and does not qualify for the second electoral round.

In the 2020 municipal elections he obtained forty-two mayoralties, including Alajuela, Heredia, Puntarenas, Desamparados, Goicoechea, Tibás, Santa Ana, San Ramón, San Carlos, Flores, Cañas, Aserrí, among others, plus the central canton of San José where the candidate Johnny Araya Monge is re-elected again, and the newly founded canton of Río Cuarto.

Philosophy

Consulted on the issue of ideologies, the founder and main leader of the National Liberation Party, Pepe Figueres, said: "Ideologies? For me, they are the dogmas of those who have no ideas," a comment that is in line with the Costa Rican political reality, a country where politics is eminently personalistic and the programmatic positions of a party can vary radically from candidate to candidate. Just as their ideologies can often become cosmetic and adapt to Costa Rican idiosyncrasy.

The political thinking of the National Liberation Party is officially social democratic, although prominent figures within the party or who used to belong to the PLN now question this.

According to its defenders, the political group follows the current global trend of social democracy, outlined in the different documents of the Socialist International, which analyze social democracy in the light of globalization, in this sense, the PLN would resemble political parties. such as the PSOE of Spain, the SPD of Germany, the Labor Party of the United Kingdom, the Colorado Party of Uruguay, the PRI of Mexico and the APRA of Peru that claim to remain social democrats, but in a modern way that uses the market economy. Thus, some prominent figures of the PLN claim to be opposed to both interventionist socialism and uncontrolled capitalism and laissez faire, thus preserving its social democratic character but with modernist tendencies (see Third Way).

On the other hand, many critics, both from the right and the left, have accused the PLN of having lost its ideological direction and of being a neoliberal, capitalist party, submissive to US policies and the Washington Consensus, which fails to protect the environment. environment and vulnerable productive sectors.

Such criticism also comes from personalities and sectors within the PLN itself, such as former president Luis Alberto Monge. According to the bookPolitical Parties in Costa Rica; trajectory, situation and perspective for changeby Gerardo Hernández Naranjo published by the social democratic Center for Democratic Studies of Latin America (CEDAL) and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, 2005, it is said:

As already stated, another aspect that has been pointed out as characteristic of the current situation of political parties is the lack of clarity in their ideological orientations. This has been expressed, in the case of traditional majority parties, by the convergence in a neoliberal nucleus that has practically indifferentiated them, especially in the strong stage of bipartisanism. And although the parties continue to call themselves Social-Democratic and Social-Christians, it is not clear that these ideological benchmarks are the central ones, over toso if they consider the style of government management they have developed in recent decades, as well as their basic agreements on the measures the country requires.

In both parties, although it has become more evident in the case of the PLN, there have been internal disputes over the meaning of such ideological definitions in the present historical context. It has been repeatedly stated that they cannot continue to be thought or used to define policies in the same way that they were between the 50s and 70s of the previous century. The ideological and leadership disputes have even led to party splits, without clearly defining new benchmarks that can contribute to the reconfiguration of party identities.

When Rolando Araya Monge, former PLN presidential candidate who was minister, deputy and mayor among others, resigned, he sent a letter to the Socialist International in which he harshly criticized the PLN, among other things alleging:

At this point, so crucial in my life, after more than four decades of serving in what was the liberating cause, I vindicate the fact that the PLN achieved an impressive work for the people of Costa Rica. I find it difficult to find another party in Latin America that can account for such achievements. I am proud of my modest participation in these struggles. However, there is nothing left of those illusions. When a party delivers its principles, it begins its decadence. When he loses his ethics, his destruction begins. National liberation, whose flag was in the hands of the people for decades, is now the most important instrument of the oligarchical hegemony established by the current Government. The outbreak of neoliberalism and the crisis of social-democratic ideas affected the Party for twenty years. Since the previous administration of Óscar Arias, the programs that had proved their effectiveness in the Costa Rican reality began to be attacked. And at this stage, after an attack on the Political Constitution, carried out through a judicial manoeuvre, Arias returns to power, and from there, he mounts the dismantling of the work of the Party, poses a shift towards the objectives of wild capitalism, and resorts to all sorts of arbitrariness to achieve its purposes.

In general it is difficult to formally define the position on the PLN spectrum, some classify it as center-right, center and even center-left, but in general terms it has different tendencies and militants whose positions cover a wide range from the right to the left. Manuel Alcántara Sáez from the University of Salamanca in an article for the Carolina Foundation mentions that:

In terms of the polarization of the party system, it should be noted that the data on which the PAC is counted allows to place the PAC on a left-central stage, the ML on the far right, the PUSC on the right and the PLN in the right center.

Says Carlos Revilla, liberationist leader and columnist:

Although the PLN continues to proclaim itself as a Social-Democratic, it is known to all, that this party is currently a mix of many things, including — rather — libertarian thought. This is clearly noted in their last two [Arias and Chinchilla administrations], where their hierarchs (especially ministers) come from anywhere, if from the center to the right of the spectrum.

Similarly, Albrecht Koschützke and Hajo Lanz, directors of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation for Central America, comment when analyzing the 2014 electoral results in the region;

For decades, the PLN, a social-democratic-conservative trend, and the PUSC, a social-Christian, had taken turns in the government. The constantly growing electoral acceptance of the leftist Frente Amplio (FA), which emerged in 2004, and of the central-left PAC, made the change of government interfering. The recent elections in Costa Rica, El Salvador and Honduras provide hope for greater social justice and a more participatory democracy, but they still do not mean a left turn in Central America. They are first of all the result of an ostensible loss of prestige of the right-wing parties that have traditionally ruled

And according to the Spanish professor Manuel Rojas Bolaños, an expert on Latin American political parties:

The PLN is a party that has been solid, but that has already been dragging a series of problems in recent times. It is a party that comes from the Latin American social-democratic tradition, but that since the late 1980s and coinciding with the first presidency of Óscar Arias began to have a turn towards the center and right center of the political spectrum

However, again, these terms are temporary and depend greatly on the dominant trend of the PLN at the time.

Trends

In Costa Rica politics is eminently personalistic. This causes different currents to frequently emerge within a party around leaders or families. Within the PLN itself there are three main trends; arismo (on the right), mongismo/arayismo (on the left) and figuerismo in the middle.

Figueresism is the trend, perhaps original, from which the National Liberation Party emerged around the emblematic figure of José Figueres Ferrer, leader of the National Liberation Army and first democratically elected president of the Second Republic and the PLN. However, other political parties also claim to be defenders of Figuerista ideological principles. Figueres proclaimed himself a utopian socialist. Different figures from the Figueres family have held various political positions.

Arism emerged in the eighties around Óscar Arias Sánchez and his brother Rodrigo. For its defenders, it promotes a departure from orthodox and statist socialism towards new, more modern versions of economic development and liberal market policies. Its Detractors generally consider it an anti-social democratic, neoliberal and right-wing ideological movement.

Mongism and its descendant, Arayism, proclaim themselves the guardians of the true social democratic values of liberationism and the socialist principles of the party, for their detractors it is a way of promoting the statism of the old left.

In addition, other personalist tendencies can be pointed out that have circulated with various pre-candidates, such as the case of "corralismo" around José Miguel Corrales and "alvarismo" alongside Antonio Álvarez Desanti, among others.

Electoral demographics

Unlike other parties that draw most of their support from certain social classes, for example the Citizen Action Party of the middle and upper class, the Frente Amplio of the middle and lower class and the Libertarian Movement of the upper class, the PLN is indicated by studies of the State of the Nation as the only party that receives more or less homogeneous support among all socioeconomic strata equally. Its territorial strength is concentrated in the coastal provinces of Guanacaste, Puntarenas and Limón, although this is a recent phenomenon as it was previously strong in the Central Valley and urban provinces such as San José, Heredia and Alajuela, which changed after the breakdown of the two-party system. The province of Cartago has been one of its historical strongholds since the war of '48, although it has not won in every election.

International Relations

The National Liberation Party is a member of the Socialist International of which Daniel Oduber Quirós, former president of Costa Rica and the PLN, Rolando Araya Monge and Bernal Jiménez Monge, former president of the PLN, obtained a vice presidency. He is also a member of the Permanent Conference of Political Parties of Latin America, of which he was president with Rolando Araya Monge.

Structure

National Assembly

The highest body of the party is the National Assembly, which is responsible for the direction, integration and supervision of the party organization, this through an assembly of delegates held every two years, chaired by the president of the party, and which It also chooses the members of the National Higher Executive Committee, as well as ratifies the appointment of the candidates for the presidency, vice-presidencies, deputies and internally elected positions, as well as the members of the Internal Elections Court, the Ethics and Disciplinary Court and the Court of Appeal.

It is made up of the members of the Plenary Assembly, the court, the Ethics and Disciplinary Court, the Secretariats, the Internal Elections Court, the Steering Committee of the Party Forums, the Study Commissions of the Secretariats of Plans and Programs and Political Education, of the National Committees of the Women's Movements, Youth, cooperative, Liberationist Workers, parliamentary faction, three delegates of the Cantonal Political Committees and twenty-five prominent liberationists appointed by the National Political Directorate.

National Executive Committee

The National Higher Executive Committee is the executive leadership of the party. It is made up of the presidency, the general secretary and the treasury, elected by the National Assembly. After the National Assembly in December 2022, the composition of the Executive Committee is as follows:

• Ricardo Sancho Chavarría, President
• Ana Lucia Delgado Orozco, Vice-Chairperson
• Miguel Guillén Salazar, Secretary-General
• Annie Saborío Mora, National Treasurer
• Steven Barrantes Núñez, Assistant Secretary-General
• Dante Kim Jun, National Assistant

National Political Directory

The National Political Directorate is the highest body of the party in matters of political action. It is made up of the National Higher Executive Committee, former candidates for the presidency, four members of the different party movements, the head of the legislative faction and another deputy appointed by the faction each year, and eleven leaders appointed by the Plenary Assembly. Its members are elected every four years, and their tasks include executing the decisions of the National Congress and the Plenary Assembly, exercising operational direction, evaluating the party's route, publicly expressing the party's position with respect to national events and international, approve the party budget, the appointment of paid officials, the secretaries of the different secretariats, accredit representatives before other national or international entities, among others.

Cantonal, Provincial and District Assemblies

The National Liberation Party holds different assemblies in the 7 provinces of the country, as well as in the different cantons and districts of each province.

National Congress

The highest ideological and programmatic body of the party is the National Congress, an assembly of different delegates and representatives of the party that is in charge, through periodic meetings attended by different members of the party and convened by the National Political Directorate, the review of its Fundamental Charter, as well as the evaluation of the route and situation of the party.

According to its statute, representatives of different groups, sectors and structures of the party participate in the Congress, ranging from members of the Plenary Assembly and the party's National Political Directorate, members of the Ethics and Disciplinary Courts, deputies before the Legislative Assembly, mayors and members of the Municipal Councils and Municipal District Councils, representatives of the liberationist youth, representatives of different social sectors, among others.

Election Results

Presidential elections

Presidential elections
Year	Candidate		Votes		%		Position	Vice-Presidents
			1	2nd round	1	2nd round
1953		José Figueres Ferrer	123 444	-	64.7 %	-	1.o	Raúl Blanco Cervantes
								Fernando Esquivel Bonilla
1958		Francisco Orlich	94 788	-	42.8 %	-	2.	Otto Cortés Fernández
								Rafael Paris Steffens
1962		Francisco Orlich	192 850	-	50.3 %	-	1.o	Raúl Blanco Cervantes
								Carlos Sáenz Herrera
1966		Daniel Oduber	218 590	-	49.0 %	-	2.	Manuel Aguilar Bonilla
								Claudio Alpízar Vargas
1970		José Figueres Ferrer	295 883	-	54.0 %	-	1.o	Manuel Aguilar Bonilla
								Jorge Rossi Chavarría
1974		Daniel Oduber	294 609	-	43.4 %	-	1.o	Carlos Manuel Castillo
								Fernando Guzmán Mata
1978		Luis Alberto Monge	364 285	-	43.8 %	-	2.	Alfonso Carro Zúñiga
								Juan Rafael Arias Trejos
1982		Luis Alberto Monge	568 374	-	58.8 %	-	1.o	Alberto Fait Lizano
								Armando Aráuz Aguilar
1986		Oscar Arias	620 314	-	52.3%	-	1.o	Jorge Dengo Obregón
								Victoria Garrón Orozco
1990		Carlos Manuel Castillo	636 701	-	41.1 %	-	2.	Eugenio Rodríguez Vega
								Meta Figueres Boggs
1994		José Figueres Olsen	739 339	-	49.62 %	-	1.o	Rodrigo Oreamuno Blanco
								Rebeca Grynspan Mayufis
1998		José Miguel Corrales	618 834	-	44.4 %	-	2.	Rosemarie Karpinsky Dodero
								Joyce Zurcher Blen
2002		Rolando Araya	475 030	563 202	31.05 %	42.05 %	2.	Fernando Naranjo Villalobos
								Sandra Piszk Feinzilber
2006		Oscar Arias	664 551	-	40.92 %	-	1.o	Laura Chinchilla Miranda
								Kevin Casas Zamora
2010		Laura Chinchilla	896 516	-	46.91 %	-	1.o	Alfio Piva Mesén
								Luis Liberman Ginsburg
2014		Johnny Araya	610 634	374 844	29.71 %	22.74 %	2.	Jorge Pattoni Sáenz
								Silvia Lara Povedano
2018		Antonio Álvarez	401 595	-	18.63 %	-	3.o	Edgar Ayales Esna
								Victoria Gamboa Ross
2022		José Figueres Olsen	571 518	924 699	27.28 %	47.20 %	2.	Álvaro Ramírez Bogantes
								Laura Arguedas Mejía

Legislative elections

Municipal elections

Leaders

Presidents of the Republic

Name (birth-death)		Image	Period of office
			Home	Final
	José María Figueres Ferrer (1906-1990)		8 May 1948	7 November 1949
			8 November 1953	8 May 1958
			8 May 1970	8 May 1974
	Francisco Orlich Bolmarcich (1907-1969)		8 May 1962	8 May 1966
	Daniel Oduber Quirós (1921-1991)		8 May 1974	8 May 1978
	Luis Alberto Monge Álvarez (1925-2016)		8 May 1982	8 May 1986
	José María Figueres Olsen (1954-)		8 May 1994	8 May 1998
	Óscar Arias Sánchez (1940-)		8 May 1986	8 May 1990
			8 May 2006	8 May 2010
	Laura Chinchilla Miranda (1959-)		8 May 2010	8 May 2014

Presidents of the Executive Committee

General Secretaries of the Executive Committee

Deputies

N.o	Province	Name
1	San José	Rodrigo Arias Sánchez
2		Andrea Álvarez Marín
3		Danny Vargas Serrano
4		Carolina Delgado Ramírez
5		Gilberth Adolfo Jiménez Siles
6	Alajuela	Dinorah Cristina Barquero
7		José Joaquín Hernández Rojas
8		Monserrat Ruiz Guevara
9	Cartago	Paulina María Ramírez Portuguez
10		Óscar Izquierdo Sandí
11		Rosaura Mendez Gamboa
12	Heredia	Kattia Rivera Soto
13		Pedro Rojas Guzmán
14	Guanacaste	Luis Fernando Mendoza Jiménez
15		Alejandra Larios Trejos
16	Puntarenas	José Francisco Nicolás Alvarado
17		Sonia Rojas Méndez
18	Lemon	Geison Enrique Valverde Méndez
19		Katherine Andrea Moreira Brown

Intendants

Province	Canton	District	Intendent
Alajuela	San Ramon	Peñas Blancas	Eliecer Chacón Pérez
Guanacaste	Abangares	Colorado	María Wilman Acosta Gutiérrez

Campaign slogans