Citizens' Action Party Partido Acción Ciudadana
President	Fabián Solano Fernández
Secretary-General	Gonzalo Coto Fernández
Founded	3 December 2000
Ideology	Social democracy Progressivism Anti-corruption Figuerism[1][2]
Political position	Centre-left[3][4][5]
International affiliation	Progressive Alliance[6][7][8]
Colors	Gold  Red
Legislative Assembly	0 / 57
Mayors	0 / 84
Alderpeople	0 / 508
Syndics	0 / 488
District councillors	0 / 1,952
Intendants	0 / 8
Party flag
Website
http://www.accionciudadana.cr/
Politics of Costa Rica Political parties Elections

TheCitizens' Action Party (Spanish:Partido Acción Ciudadana; commonly abbreviated asPAC) is apolitical party inCosta Rica.^[9]

Its platform is based on encouraging citizen participation and involvement in politics. One of its guiding ideals is to fight against corruption, arguing that it is one of the main causes of underdevelopment and voter apathy. The party took a leading role in the failed campaign against Costa Rica's membership of theCentral American Free Trade Agreement.

PAC was founded in December 2000 by several dissidents from Costa Rica's two traditional parties, theNational Liberation Party and theSocial Christian Unity Party. Originally an anti-corruption party, it startled the Costa Rican political arena with a very strong showing in the2002 general elections. In the presidential vote, party founder and candidateOttón Solís was able to secure 26% of the votes – an unprecedented amount for a third party in Costa Rica – and force a runoff between the PLN and PUSC.

The party won 21.9% of the popular vote and 14 out of 57 seats in theLegislative Assembly, making it the third strongest political force in the legislature. A few months later, however, after a series of internal disputes, six of the party's 14deputies resigned from the party, leaving PAC with only eight seats.

In the February 5, 2006parliamentary election, the party won 17 out of 57 seats. Ottón Solís ran forpresident again, losing to the PLN'sOscar Arias Sanchez by less than 2% of the votes. Arias only won by a few thousand votes over the 40 percent threshold required to avoid a runoff. The number ofspoiled ballots was larger than the margin between Solís and Arias.

After the 2006 election, Ótton Solís took a year away from politics to teach in theUnited States. Former PLN Secretary GeneralLuis Guillermo Solís' name began being circulated at meetings of the "ungroup," an informal gathering of PAC officials, led by former deputy Alberto Salom.^[10] Several PAC officials wanted Luis Guillermo Solís to run as a deputy inSan José and as a vice presidential candidate in 2010.^[10]

Future President Luis Guillermo Solís joined the party in 2009.^[11] and attended meetings of the "ungroup" shortly thereafter in anticipation of the 2014 election.^[10]

In the 2010 election, Ottón Solís ran for his third and final time as president.Laura Chinchilla of the PLN won, but Ottón Solís finished with 25.2% of the votes. PAC won the second fraction in the Legislative Assembly with 11 deputies elected. Six candidates won municipal elections in the rural communities ofAserrí, Matina, Hojancha,Cañas, Los Chiles y Guatuso.

In 2013, PAC held itssecond national convention. It was an open convention in which any citizen could vote, despite party affiliation. Four candidates vied for the primary to represent PAC in the 2014 national elections:Epsy Campbell Barr,Juan Carlos Mendoza,Luis Guillermo Solís, andRonald Solís Bolaños, with Luis Guillermo Solís winning 35% of the votes.

On 6 April 2014, Luis Guillermo Solís became thepresident elect of Costa Rica. PAC candidates won 13 seats in the Legislative Assembly.^[12]

Thethird national convention was held between only two candidates, both former ministers on PAC's first cabinet; Minister of EconomyWelmer Ramos and Minister of LaborCarlos Alvarado. Ramos was an economist, more socially conservative and close to the "ottonista" faction, whilst Alvarado was writer and political scientist, much more socially liberal and younger, close to the "progresista" faction. Alvarado won the primary election becoming PAC's first time candidate during government.

Despite suffering from a diminished popularity due to theCementazo scandal affecting the image ofLuis Guillermo Solis' government, Alvarado's progressive positions boost him into the second round as a counter-reaction after the growth ofEvangelical Christiansinger and ultra-conservative candidateFabricio Alvarado after the backlash against theIACHR's ruling ordering the country to legalizesame-sex marriage, winning by a wide margin in the second round with 60% of the votes and more than 1,300,000 votes over the 39% and around 800,000 votes of his rival, becoming the second time that the party achieved more than a million votes in second round.^[13][14]

While cleaning up corruption has been one of PAC's main goals since its creation, Solís has added to the party's platform. He wants to build infrastructure, bolster Costa Rica'suniversal health care andsocial security systems and push for environmentally friendly policies.^[15][16] Historically, PAC has opposed free trade agreements such asCAFTA, which Solís claims is improperly implemented.^[17] In addition, PAC claims that the country's tax system is inadequate, saying that a more progressive system is needed.^[18]

PAC is a member of theProgressive Alliance.^[19] It maintains informal relations with other progressive and social democratic parties. Ottón Solís has independently met withRicardo Lagos of theSocialist Party of Chile during a visit to Costa Rica,Cristina Fernández, and members of theDemocratic Party of the United States.^[20]

The party was affected in 2016 by a conviction for irregular handling of funds when treasurer Maynor Sterling and an official of the headquarters named Bolaños were found guilty of trying to collect from theSupreme Elections Court for goods and services donated by adherents of the party. The conviction carried a fine of 500 million colones and jail terms for the two involved. In December 2020, the PAC resorts to requesting donations to pay the debt for fraud to the State.^[21]

Election	Candidate	First round				Second round
		Votes	%	Position	Result	Votes	%	Position	Result
2002	Ottón Solís	400,681	26.19%	3rd	Lost
2006		646,382	39.80%	2nd	Lost
2010		464,454	25.15%	2nd	Lost
2014	Luis Guillermo Solís	629,866	30.64%	1st	─	1,314,327	77.81%	1st	Won
2018	Carlos Alvarado Quesada	466,129	21.63%	2nd	─	1,322,908	60.59%	1st	Won
2022	Welmer Ramos González	13,803	0.66%	10th	Lost

Election	Leader	Votes	%	Seats	+/–	Position	Government
2002	Ottón Solís	334,162	22.0%	14 / 57	New	3rd	Opposition
2006		409,030	25.3%	17 / 57	3	2nd	Opposition
2010		334,636	17.6%	11 / 57	6	2nd	Opposition
2014	Luis Guillermo Solís	480,969	23.4%	13 / 57	2	2nd	Government
2018	Carlos Alvarado Quesada	347,703	16.3%	10 / 57	3	3rd	Government
2022	Welmer Ramos González	44,622	2.2%	0 / 57	10	7th	Extra-parliamentary

• Official website(in Spanish)

• 2000 establishments in Costa Rica
• Anti-corruption parties
• Christian socialist organizations
• Citizens' Action Parties
• Political parties established in 2000
• Political parties in Costa Rica
• Progressive parties
• Social democratic parties in North America
• Citizens' Action Party (Costa Rica)

• CS1 Spanish-language sources (es)
• CS1 errors: generic name
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Articles containing Spanish-language text
• Articles with Spanish-language sources (es)