Costa Rican general election, 1982

Costa Rican general election, 1982
Costa Rica
February 7, 1982

Turnout 69.1%
 
Nominee Luis Alberto Monge Rafael Ángel Calderón Mario Echandi
Party National Liberation Unity Coalition National Movement
Home state Alajuela San José San José
Popular vote 568,374 542,434 37,127
Percentage 58.8% 33.6% 3.8%

President before election

Rodrigo Carazo
Unity Coalition

Elected President

Luis Alberto Monge
National Liberation

This article is part of a series on the
politics and government of
Costa Rica

General elections were held in Costa Rica on February 7, 1982.[1] Luis Alberto Monge of the National Liberation Party won the presidential election, whilst his party also won the parliamentary election. Voter turnout was 78.6%.[2]

Affected by a deep economic crisis and tensions with Somoza’s Nicaragua due to Rodrigo Carazo’s support of the FSLN, Carazo’s government suffered from extremely low popularity. This naturally affected the Unity Coalition (Carazo’s party) and its candidate Rafael Ángel Calderón Fournier giving to PLN and its candidate trade union leader and farmer Luis Alberto Monge a landslide victory and the party's biggest parliamentary group in its history (33 deputies). Nevertheless, Unity remained as the second most voted party in the election as Calderón was able to attract the traditional and very loyal Calderonista vote.[3] The crisis was also beneficial for the Left as it achieved a historical high voting and four seats in Parliament (the biggest group since 1948) with Dr. Rodrigo Gutiérrez repeating candidacy from United People. Another candidate was former president Mario Echandi by the conservative and anti-Communist National Movement, but Echandi’s candidacy was testimonial receiving almost as many votes as Gutierrez (3% each), according to some due to his incapacity to understand modern times when personal wealth and family origin was not enough to win an election. [4]

Results

President

Candidate Party Votes %
Luis Alberto MongeNational Liberation Party568,37458.8
Rafael Ángel Calderón FournierUnity Coalition325,18733.6
Mario Echandi JiménezNational Independent Movement37,1273.8
Rodrigo Gutiérrez SáenzUnited People32,1863.3
Edwin Chacón MadrigalIndependent Party1,9550.2
Edwin Retana ChavesDemocratic Party1,7470.2
Invalid/blank votes25,103-
Total991,679100
Source: Nohlen

Parliament

Party Votes % Seats +/-
National Liberation Party527,23155.233+8
Social Christian Unity Party277,99829.118-9
United People61,4656.44+1
Alajuelense Democratic Action12,4861.61New
National Democratic Party11,5751.20New
Cartago Agrarian Union Party7,2350.80-1
National Independent Movement34,4373.61+1
Costa Rican Concord Party5,0140.500
Independent Party4,6710.500
Limonese Authentic Party3,8930.400
People's Action Party3,4560.40New
Democratic Party2,6720.300
Cartago Parliamentary Union1,0470.10New
Partido Auténtico Puntarenense1,0360.100
Worker-Peasant Party9760.10New
Progressive Liberal National Republican Party7080.10New
Invalid/blank votes35,576---
Total991,566100570
Source: Nohlen

References

  1. Nohlen, D (2005) Elections in the Americas: A data handbook, Volume I, p155 ISBN 978-0-19-928357-6
  2. Nohlen, p157
  3. Lehoucq, Fabrice. The Politics of Modern Central America. Retrieved 16 August 2016.
  4. White, Stephen; Webb, Paul. Party Politics in New Democracies. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 16 August 2016.
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