President Rafael Ángel Calderón was elected in 1940 in the midst of this social turmoil and political upheaval. Closely related to several leading cafetalero families, and grandson of the infamous Tomás Guardia, Calderón was handpicked by President León Cortes, (1936-40), as his successor and achieved a massive 86% of the vote.
A profoundly religious man, trained as a physician, he presented himself as a caring man of the people, a progressive alternative to communism, and did not appear to represent break with the liberal ideology of the coffee elite.
Like his grandfather he was a social reformist. However, he was also deeply influenced by his experience as a physician and by the social Christian values of his religion, which led him to reject both Marxist materialism and Liberal individualism, believing instead in a Christian notion of community and of the responsibility of the State to care for its people.
Once elected he began putting these ideas into practice, implementing a series of ambitious reforms that, despite fierce opposition at the time, would become the basis of Costa Rica’s modern welfare state.
Among his achievements were the founding of the University of Costa Rica in 1940; the creation of the country’s renowned social security system, la Caja, providing health insurance for all, as well as benefits for unemployment, old-age and dependents; a social bill of rights, known as the ´Social Guarantees’; and a labor code greatly extending workers rights and protection.
Calderón received support from workers unions and the Communist Party, as well as more left-leaning sections of the middle-classes. His principles were also much admired by the Catholic Church, especially after he re-instated religious education (disapproved of by the secular Liberalists) in schools in 1941.
However, the merchants, businessmen and landowning elite felt that these ‘improvements’ were being made at their expense, and became hostile to the ‘progressive’ and state-interventionist elements of the reform program. This opposition was further inflamed by Costa Rica’s declaration of war against Germany and Japan on December 11th, 1941, and the subsequent internment of German and Italian members of the coffee export trade suspected of Fascist sympathies. Calderón lost the support of the wealthy elite, and, in a bid to increase his voter base, formed an alliance with Mora’s Communist Party.
This was the first in a series of unlikely but strategic alliances throughout this tumultuous period, and did indeed increase the President’s political strength, ensuring the success of his reforms. However, it further alienated all classes of the coffee sector and increased the intensity of his opposition, leading to extreme polarization in the run up to his second election attempt in 1948.
While Calderón had secured the support of both the urban and rural poor, the Communist Party and the Church, the forces opposed to his government had also united in an unlikely coalition simply calling itself ´The Opposition’.
This ‘opposition’ comprised of aristocratic members of the coffee elite and their rural followers, outraged by the interventionist, socialist nature of the reforms; and a group of entrepreneurial, pro-capitalist, democratic reformers, who supported Calderón’s reforms yet were fiercely critical of what they saw as his ‘corrupt’ administration and of the ‘personality cults’ and ‘closed-off’ economic dominance of the coffee elite; united only in their opposition to Calderón and in their militant anti-communism.
The alliance revolved around two men, aristocratic publisher Otilio Ulate, editor of the conservative Diario de Costa Rica, and representative of the cafetaleros, who proclaimed the reforms an ‘opium of the people,’ 23 and José Figueres Ferrer, a wealthy, self-made agricultural entrepreneur who denounced the State as corrupt, antiquated and incompetent and called for an economic revolution that would transform Costa Rica into a modern, social-democratic, capitalist-industrial nation.
Figueres and his supporters saw armed insurrection and a military victory as the only option that would leave them free to act and clear the way for a new social and economic order, a ‘Second Republic’.
Figueres had been exiled to Mexico in 1942, after denouncing the president in a live radio broadcast. Whilst in exile he made contact with other organizations aiming to overthrow the Central American dictatorships, and on his return to Costa Rica in 1944 he began training irregular troops at his ranch in San Isidro de General, forming an ‘Army of National Liberation’.
The election campaign of 1948 saw ‘The Opposition’ candidate, Ulate, pitted against Calderón. Officially, Ulate defeated Calderón by more than 10,000 votes.
However, Congress, which was largely dominated by Calderón supporters, first demanded a recount, amidst allegations of fraud, then voted to annul the results. Thus, negotiations between Calderón and Ulate began, to find a peaceful solution. Figueres used this opportunity to launch his long-threatened armed rebellion, declaring war on the government before any compromise could be made.
On March 12th, 1948, he and his band of revolutionaries took over the town of San Isidro, initiating a civil war that would last 40 days and result in over 2000 deaths.
On April 19th, with government forces suffering heavy losses to the insurgents, and with Figueres preparing to storm San Jose, foreign diplomatic corps finally negotiated a cease-fire and political pact to end the war. Pro-governmental forces agreed to surrender in exchange for amnesty and indemnity for all victims, whatever their affiliation, and a guarantee that the social reforms of Calderón would be respected and kept intact. Figueres then marched into San Jose to initiate his revolution.
He immediately broke his promise by sending Calderón himself along with thousands of his supporters into exile and outlawing the Communist Party. But, true to his belief in democratic elections, on May 1st he signed an agreement with Ulate, promising to hand over office to the rightfully elected president, after a period of eighteen months during which the country would be ruled by an eleven man junta, the ‘Founding Junta of the Second Republic’, headed by Figueres himself.
As head of this ruling junta, Figueres, much to the horror of the coffee elite who had supported him, proved to be more radical in many respects than Calderón.
Calderón’s reforms were embraced and strengthened, and during its brief tenure the junta issued a further 834 decrees-laws. One of its first acts was the abolition of the Costa Rican army, immediately removing a potential ally of the coffee oligarchy and eliminating the possibility of military intervention in future elections.
Figueres’s most controversial moves included the nationalization of all banks and a 10% taxation on wealth, undermining cafetalero control of credit and banking and permanently ending both their political and economic dominance. Although he rejected Socialist state-ownership, he did support intervention in the economy, establishing autonomous state-sponsored entities to take control of key sectors; the first of these was ICE, the Costa Rican Electricity Institute, the system was then expanded to include insurance, telecommunications, aviation, tourism, fisheries and petroleum refining.
In January 1949 a ‘New Constitution for the Second Republic’ 24 was drawn up which included finally giving the franchise to women and blacks, barring presidents from re-election for 8 years after leaving office and creating an ‘Electoral Tribunal’ that would ensure the sanctity of electoral democracy, making it an essential principle of the country’s politics.
The Costa Rican Communist Party was declared illegal and with this Costa Rica ‘symbolically buried’ 25 communism and the class divisions, inequality and social questions it had raised ‘disappeared’ from political discourse. However, despite Figures’ profoundly anti-communist stance, the aforementioned demands of Tico-Comunismo were all actually achieved under his reformist regime and remain fundamental principles of Costa Rican politics and consciousness today.
In November 1949 Figueres handed power over to Ulate as promised, but by this time the foundations of economic transformation had already been laid and the coffee elite had suffered a fatal blow from which they would never regain their former dominance.
Like his grandfather he was a social reformist. However, he was also deeply influenced by his experience as a physician and by the social Christian values of his religion, which led him to reject both Marxist materialism and Liberal individualism, believing instead in a Christian notion of community and of the responsibility of the State to care for its people.
Once elected he began putting these ideas into practice, implementing a series of ambitious reforms that, despite fierce opposition at the time, would become the basis of Costa Rica’s modern welfare state.
Among his achievements were the founding of the University of Costa Rica in 1940; the creation of the country’s renowned social security system, la Caja, providing health insurance for all, as well as benefits for unemployment, old-age and dependents; a social bill of rights, known as the ´Social Guarantees’; and a labor code greatly extending workers rights and protection.
Calderón received support from workers unions and the Communist Party, as well as more left-leaning sections of the middle-classes. His principles were also much admired by the Catholic Church, especially after he re-instated religious education (disapproved of by the secular Liberalists) in schools in 1941.
However, the merchants, businessmen and landowning elite felt that these ‘improvements’ were being made at their expense, and became hostile to the ‘progressive’ and state-interventionist elements of the reform program. This opposition was further inflamed by Costa Rica’s declaration of war against Germany and Japan on December 11th, 1941, and the subsequent internment of German and Italian members of the coffee export trade suspected of Fascist sympathies. Calderón lost the support of the wealthy elite, and, in a bid to increase his voter base, formed an alliance with Mora’s Communist Party.
This was the first in a series of unlikely but strategic alliances throughout this tumultuous period, and did indeed increase the President’s political strength, ensuring the success of his reforms. However, it further alienated all classes of the coffee sector and increased the intensity of his opposition, leading to extreme polarization in the run up to his second election attempt in 1948.
While Calderón had secured the support of both the urban and rural poor, the Communist Party and the Church, the forces opposed to his government had also united in an unlikely coalition simply calling itself ´The Opposition’.
This ‘opposition’ comprised of aristocratic members of the coffee elite and their rural followers, outraged by the interventionist, socialist nature of the reforms; and a group of entrepreneurial, pro-capitalist, democratic reformers, who supported Calderón’s reforms yet were fiercely critical of what they saw as his ‘corrupt’ administration and of the ‘personality cults’ and ‘closed-off’ economic dominance of the coffee elite; united only in their opposition to Calderón and in their militant anti-communism.
The alliance revolved around two men, aristocratic publisher Otilio Ulate, editor of the conservative Diario de Costa Rica, and representative of the cafetaleros, who proclaimed the reforms an ‘opium of the people,’ 23 and José Figueres Ferrer, a wealthy, self-made agricultural entrepreneur who denounced the State as corrupt, antiquated and incompetent and called for an economic revolution that would transform Costa Rica into a modern, social-democratic, capitalist-industrial nation.
Figueres and his supporters saw armed insurrection and a military victory as the only option that would leave them free to act and clear the way for a new social and economic order, a ‘Second Republic’.
Figueres had been exiled to Mexico in 1942, after denouncing the president in a live radio broadcast. Whilst in exile he made contact with other organizations aiming to overthrow the Central American dictatorships, and on his return to Costa Rica in 1944 he began training irregular troops at his ranch in San Isidro de General, forming an ‘Army of National Liberation’.
The election campaign of 1948 saw ‘The Opposition’ candidate, Ulate, pitted against Calderón. Officially, Ulate defeated Calderón by more than 10,000 votes.
However, Congress, which was largely dominated by Calderón supporters, first demanded a recount, amidst allegations of fraud, then voted to annul the results. Thus, negotiations between Calderón and Ulate began, to find a peaceful solution. Figueres used this opportunity to launch his long-threatened armed rebellion, declaring war on the government before any compromise could be made.
On March 12th, 1948, he and his band of revolutionaries took over the town of San Isidro, initiating a civil war that would last 40 days and result in over 2000 deaths.
On April 19th, with government forces suffering heavy losses to the insurgents, and with Figueres preparing to storm San Jose, foreign diplomatic corps finally negotiated a cease-fire and political pact to end the war. Pro-governmental forces agreed to surrender in exchange for amnesty and indemnity for all victims, whatever their affiliation, and a guarantee that the social reforms of Calderón would be respected and kept intact. Figueres then marched into San Jose to initiate his revolution.
He immediately broke his promise by sending Calderón himself along with thousands of his supporters into exile and outlawing the Communist Party. But, true to his belief in democratic elections, on May 1st he signed an agreement with Ulate, promising to hand over office to the rightfully elected president, after a period of eighteen months during which the country would be ruled by an eleven man junta, the ‘Founding Junta of the Second Republic’, headed by Figueres himself.
As head of this ruling junta, Figueres, much to the horror of the coffee elite who had supported him, proved to be more radical in many respects than Calderón.
Calderón’s reforms were embraced and strengthened, and during its brief tenure the junta issued a further 834 decrees-laws. One of its first acts was the abolition of the Costa Rican army, immediately removing a potential ally of the coffee oligarchy and eliminating the possibility of military intervention in future elections.
Figueres’s most controversial moves included the nationalization of all banks and a 10% taxation on wealth, undermining cafetalero control of credit and banking and permanently ending both their political and economic dominance. Although he rejected Socialist state-ownership, he did support intervention in the economy, establishing autonomous state-sponsored entities to take control of key sectors; the first of these was ICE, the Costa Rican Electricity Institute, the system was then expanded to include insurance, telecommunications, aviation, tourism, fisheries and petroleum refining.
In January 1949 a ‘New Constitution for the Second Republic’ 24 was drawn up which included finally giving the franchise to women and blacks, barring presidents from re-election for 8 years after leaving office and creating an ‘Electoral Tribunal’ that would ensure the sanctity of electoral democracy, making it an essential principle of the country’s politics.
The Costa Rican Communist Party was declared illegal and with this Costa Rica ‘symbolically buried’ 25 communism and the class divisions, inequality and social questions it had raised ‘disappeared’ from political discourse. However, despite Figures’ profoundly anti-communist stance, the aforementioned demands of Tico-Comunismo were all actually achieved under his reformist regime and remain fundamental principles of Costa Rican politics and consciousness today.
In November 1949 Figueres handed power over to Ulate as promised, but by this time the foundations of economic transformation had already been laid and the coffee elite had suffered a fatal blow from which they would never regain their former dominance.
