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National Liberation Party Partido Liberación Nacional | |
|---|---|
 | |
| President | Jorge Pattoni Sáenz |
| Founder | José Figueres Ferrer |
| Founded | 12 October 1951; 74 years ago (1951-10-12) |
| Headquarters | Casa Liberacionista "José Figueres Ferrer",San José |
| Student wing | Movimiento Universitario Liberacionista (MUL) Movimiento Estudiantil Liberacionista de Educación Media (MELEM) |
| Youth wing | Juventud Liberacionista |
| Membership(2025) | ~100,000[1] |
| Ideology | Social democracy[2] Third Way[citation needed] Figuerism[3][4] |
| Political position | Centre-left[5] Historical: Centre-left toleft-wing |
| Regional affiliation | COPPPAL |
| International affiliation | Socialist International |
| Colours | Green,white |
| Legislative Assembly | 18 / 57 |
| Intendants | 2 / 8 |
| Mayors | 29 / 82 |
| Alderpeople | 171 / 508 |
| Syndics | 260 / 486 |
| District councillors | 855 / 1,944 |
| Party flag | |
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| Website | |
| www | |
TheNational Liberation Party (Spanish:Partido Liberación Nacional,PLN), nicknamed theverdiblancos ("green and whites"),[6] is a political party inCosta Rica. The party is a member of theSocialist International.[7]Social-democratic by statute, the party has a few internal factions, includingliberals,Third Way supporters,centrists, andsocial conservatives.
In 1948, a rebel group called National Liberation Army commanded bycaudilloJosé Figueres Ferrer led a rebellion against the government of thenPresidentRafael Angel Calderón Guardia and hiscommunist allies. After theCivil War the rebels were victorious and Figueres took power de facto. Yet, Figueres did not overrule thesocial reforms made by Calderón and allies, likeSocial Security, almost free college education and Labor Laws but kept them and even made a series ofprogressive reforms himself like abolishing the army and introducing taxation on capital. Figueres gave up power in favor of the democratically elected presidentOtilio Ulate in 1949.[8]
In 1951, the Social Democratic Party, the Centre for the Study of National Problems and the group Democratic Action formed the National Liberation Party in October 12 in order to participate in the1953 election, the first election since the civil war, with Figueres as nominee anddemocratic socialism as their ideology.[8] This election was very controversial as many parties were unable to participate, among others Calderon’sRepublican Party and the Communists. Figueres won easily over the only other candidate with 60% of the votes.
For the1958 general election, the PLN was split, asJorge Rossi left the party after losing in the primaries and was basically an independent candidate thus splitting the Social Democrat vote. The PLN suffers its first defeat as oppositional candidate, liberalMario Echandi, won the election with the support of Calderón. However, after this time, PLN will be clearly Costa Rica’sdominant party in the political system as only when the opposition ran united were capable of winning.[8] This was the case in the1966 and1978 election, the rest of the time PLN’s nominees tended to win easily.
In1986, then younger leaderÓscar Arias won the party’s nomination facing the traditional leadership of the party, including Figueres. Arias won also the country’s presidency and his role in the negotiation of a peace agreement to stop the Central American Wars earned him theNobel Peace Prize.[8] Some critics inside and outside the party pointed Arias’ administration as moreneo-liberal thansocialist and as a switch from PLN’s traditional progressive views.[8]
It wasn't until 1983 when theUnity Coalition merged into theSocial Christian Unity Party that PLN had to confront what was basically a party of the same dimensions. It is after this time that Costa Rica enters atwo-party system with PLN and PUSC as the two main political forces and between the two 90% of the vote casting. However, in the 2000s, a new party was founded by many former PLN and PUSC leaders, among them former minister and deputyOttón Solís, formerFirst LadyMargarita Penón (Óscar Arias’ ex-wife) and notable writer and journalistAlberto Cañas. The new party namedCitizens Action Party attracted many progressive voters dissatisfied with PLN’s turn to the right and is often pointed as one of the reasons for PLN’s nomineeRolando Araya’s defeat in the2002 general election. In any case, after PUSC’ catastrophic debacle in 2005 due to a series of corruption scandals PAC became PLN’s main political rival. This was particularly notorious in the2006 election with Óscar Arias looking for re-election and PAC’s candidate Ottón Solís. Most Costa Ricans showed mixed feelings over Arias, some admiring him and some others very oppose to his figure.[8] That and the issue ofCAFTA that polarized public opinion as basically half the population was in favor and half against apparently was translated into the voting polls as Arias (who was pro-CAFTA) and Solís (who was anti-CAFTA) were practically tied after the election. Arias won by a very slight margin of some 22,000 votes after an exhaustive counting.[9]
In thesame year's parliamentary election, the party won 25 out of 57 seats. In the2010 general election,Laura Chinchilla, the previousvice-president and the PLN candidate, won the election with an initial count of 47 percent.
A newspaper poll in July 2011 showed a decline in party popularity. Commentary on the poll pointed to an inherited fiscal crisis, border friction with Nicaragua, and natural disasters the previous November as contributing factors to public discontent.[10][11][12]
In 2013, PLN’s candidate wasSan José Mayor since 1982Johnny Araya[13] (Rolando Araya’s brother) after other aspirants like former Presidential Minister Rodrigo Arias (Óscar Arias’ brother) and former presidentJosé María Figueres (José Figueres’ son) dropped from the race due to be very low in the polls making a primary unnecessary. Araya was the frontrunner for a while in most polls but he went second in the first electoral round earning only 29% of the votes, the lowest percentage ever for a PLN’s nominee, and behind PAC’s nomineeLuis Guillermo Solís. For the run-off election Araya resign his candidacy arguing that he had no more money to run a campaign and that all polls showed him losing by wide margin. Effectively in the second round Solís won with 78% of the votes (1.3 million voters) and Araya gained only 22%.[14]
Araya was expelled from the party after a resolution of the Ethics Committee due to his resignation as candidate in the second round (something unconstitutional, as theConstitution does not allow resigning a candidacy) thus Araya ran for Mayor of San José with a local party winning the election in the2016 municipal election, in which PLN was the most voted party, yet it lost 14 mayoralties and received much fewer votes that in the previous municipal election.[15]
The party, as then main opposition toLuis Guillermo Solís's government, went into a very divisiveprimary in which then deputyAntonio Álvarez Desanti won over former presidentJosé María Figueres. Internal fighting made impossible to reach an agreement among the factions leading to Figueres withdrawing his support of Desanti's nomination. Desanti, who had previously left the party whilst criticizing it for corruption and abandoning its social-democratic ideology, had the support ofOscar Arias and his brother Rodrigo, however. Nevertheless its results in the2018 Costa Rican general election were crushing, as the party suffered its worst defeat in history with only 18% of votes and failing to gain a spot in the run-off ending as third for the first time in its history.[16]
Presidents of the party:[17]
| Election | Candidate | First round | Second round | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Votes | % | Position | Result | Votes | % | Position | Result | ||
| 1953 | José Figueres Ferrer | 123,444 | 64.7% | 1st | Won | ||||
| 1958 | Francisco Orlich | 94,788 | 42.8% |  2nd | Lost | ||||
| 1962 | 192,850 | 50.3% |  1st | Won | |||||
| 1966 | Daniel Oduber | 218,590 | 49.5% | 2nd | Lost | ||||
| 1970 | José Figueres Ferrer | 295,883 | 54.8% | 1st | Won | ||||
| 1974 | Daniel Oduber | 294,609 | 43.4% | 1st | Won | ||||
| 1978 | Luis Alberto Monge | 364,285 | 43.8% | 2nd | Lost | ||||
| 1982 | 568,374 | 58.8% | 1st | Won | |||||
| 1986 | Óscar Arias | 620,314 | 52.3% | 1st | Won | ||||
| 1990 | Carlos Manuel Castillo | 636,701 | 47.2% | 2nd | Lost | ||||
| 1994 | José Figueres Olsen | 739,339 | 49.6% | 1st | Won | ||||
| 1998 | José Miguel Corrales | 618,834 | 44.4% | 2nd | Lost | ||||
| 2002 | Rolando Araya | 475,030 | 31.1% | 2nd | ─ | 563,202 | 42.0% | 2nd | Lost |
| 2006 | Óscar Arias | 664,551 | 40.9% | 1st | Won | ||||
| 2010 | Laura Chinchilla | 896,516 | 46.9% | 1st | Won | ||||
| 2014 | Johnny Araya | 610,634 | 29.7% | 2nd | ─ | 374,844 | 22.1% | 2nd | Lost |
| 2018 | Antonio Álvarez | 377,688 | 18.6% | 3rd | Lost | ||||
| 2022 | José Figueres Olsen | 571,518 | 27.3% | 1st | ─ | 924,699 | 47.2% | 2nd | Lost |
| Election | Leader | Votes | % | Seats | +/– | Position | Government |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1953 | José Figueres Ferrer | 114,043 | 64.7% | 30 / 45 | New | 1st | Government |
| 1958 | Francisco Orlich | 86,081 | 41.7% | 20 / 45 | 10 | 1st | Opposition |
| 1962 | 184,135 | 49.8% | 29 / 57 | 9 | 1st | Government | |
| 1966 | Daniel Oduber | 202,891 | 48.9% | 29 / 57 | 0 | 1st | Opposition |
| 1970 | José Figueres Ferrer | 269,038 | 50.7% | 32 / 57 | 3 | 1st | Government |
| 1974 | Daniel Oduber | 271,867 | 40.9% | 27 / 57 | 5 | 1st | Government |
| 1978 | Luis Alberto Monge | 155,047 | 48.2% | 25 / 57 | 2 | 2nd | Opposition |
| 1982 | 527,231 | 55.5% | 33 / 57 | 8 | 1st | Government | |
| 1986 | Óscar Arias | 560,694 | 47.8% | 29 / 57 | 4 | 1st | Government |
| 1990 | Carlos Manuel Castillo | 559,632 | 41.9% | 25 / 57 | 4 | 2nd | Opposition |
| 1994 | José Figueres Olsen | 658,258 | 44.6% | 28 / 57 | 3 | 1st | Government |
| 1998 | José Miguel Corrales | 481,933 | 34.8% | 23 / 57 | 5 | 2nd | Opposition |
| 2002 | Rolando Araya | 412,383 | 27.1% | 17 / 57 | 6 | 2nd | Opposition |
| 2006 | Óscar Arias | 589,731 | 36.5% | 25 / 57 | 8 | 1st | Government |
| 2010 | Laura Chinchilla | 708,043 | 37.3% | 24 / 57 | 1 | 1st | Government |
| 2014 | Johnny Araya | 526,531 | 25.7% | 18 / 57 | 6 | 1st | Opposition |
| 2018 | Antonio Álvarez | 416,638 | 19.5% | 17 / 57 | 1 | 1st | Opposition |
| 2022 | José Figueres Olsen | 515,231 | 24.8% | 19 / 57 | 2 | 1st | Opposition |
(in Spanish)| Parliamentary fractions in the Legislative Assembly | |
|---|---|
| Extra-parliamentary parties |
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| Cantonal and provincial parties | |
