The PLN was founded in 1951 by José María Figueres Ferrer, three-time president of Costa Rica in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, father of the party that lost that Sunday’s election, José María Figueres Olsen, who also held the first magistracy ( 1994- 199), but now he could not return to the Presidential House.
Rodrigo Chaves, a 60-year-old economist, won the Costa Rican presidency with the young Democratic Social Progress Party (founded in 2018) with 52.85 percent of the valid votes cast in the second ballot the previous day.
This is the third consecutive loss for the PLN in the elections, as their candidate Johnny Araya lost in the second round to Luis Guillermo Solís of the Citizen Action Party in 2014 and did not even go to the polls in 2018.
In analyzing these findings, the President of the Legislative Assembly, PLN MP Silvia Hernández, claimed that this should prompt us to make a series of in-depth reflections, some – as she mentioned – about the kind of country we are and the country that we want to advance.
Others, he continued, are concerned with the future of National Liberation and those that require urgent action from us to deal with the crises we are experiencing.
The leader of the PLN parliamentary group in the Legislative Assembly, MP María José Corrales, told digital news CRHOY.com last night that “it was not an easy electoral process. There were many areas in particular where Costa Ricans could have felt a greater inclination or inclination towards their decision-making.
We have to do this internal analysis, he said, assuring: “Unfortunately, I think that as a party with so much history, the PLN bears its burden. We have internal situations, like any party, that need to be corrected and improved. We were a very responsible party.”
When asked by Teletica Channel 7 about the defeat, former candidate Claudio Alpízar expressed great pain as “we had the best candidate, the best party and the best team”, while former vice presidential candidate Laura Arguedas claimed that “there were many factors gives. We were on the verge of populism and well it has already arrived in this country.
Likewise, Álvaro Zamora, former PLN candidate, said that after an electoral process of this kind, his party first analyzed the causes of the defeat and blamed me for the mistakes made.
But, he emphasized, laying the foundation for something new, because “the liberation continues to show that it is a party that has great faith in a large part of our people”.
Liberationist MP Roberto Thompson pointed out that the defeat was an important message for the party and it was the third loss in a row.
“I think that requires a period of reflection that needs to be addressed in the very short term to not only determine the causes of the defeat, but also what the party needs to do to get back in touch with people,” Thompson said .
rgh/ale