1953 Costa Rican general election

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Spanish. (March 2021) Click [show] for important translation instructions. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Spanish Wikipedia article at [[:es:Elecciones generales de Costa Rica de 1953]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|es|Elecciones generales de Costa Rica de 1953}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

1953 Costa Rican general election

26 July 1953

Presidential election

← 1948 1958 →

Nominee José Figueres Ferrer Fernando Castro Cervantes [es] Party PLN Democratic Popular vote 123,444 67,324 Percentage 64.71% 35.29%

President before election Otilio Ulate PUN Elected President José Figueres Ferrer PLN

Parliamentary election

← 1949 1958 →

All 45 seats in the Legislative Assembly 23 seats needed for a majority

Party Leader % Seats +/– PLN José Figueres Ferrer 64.75 30 +27 Democratic Fernando Castro Cervantes [es] 21.19 11 New PRN Rafael Ángel Calderón Guardia 7.21 3 New PUN Otilio Ulate Blanco 6.85 1 −34 This lists parties that won seats. See the complete results below.

Maps

Presidential results by canton Presidential results by province Parliamentary results by province

Politics of Costa Rica
Constitution Abortion law LGBT rights
Executive President (list) Rodrigo Chaves Robles Vice Presidents Stephan Brunner Mary Munive
Legislature Legislative Assembly (History) President: Rodrigo Arias Sánchez
Judiciary Supreme Court of Justice President: Fernando Cruz Castro
Administrative divisions Provinces and comarcas Cantons Districts Local government Indigenous territories
Elections Recent elections General: 2014 2018 2022 2007 CAFTA referendum Political parties
Foreign relations Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Worship Minister: Rodolfo Solano Diplomatic missions of / in Costa Rica Passport Visa requirements Visa policy
Costa Rica portal Other countries
v t e

General elections were held in Costa Rica on 26 July 1953.^[1] José Figueres Ferrer of the National Liberation Party won the presidential election, whilst his party also won the parliamentary election. Voter turnout was 67% in the presidential election and 68% in the parliamentary election.^[2] Local elections were also held.

This was Costa Rica's first election since the end of the 1948 Civil War, and democratic guarantees were not fully restored.

José Figueres, the caudillo of the victorious National Liberation Army faction in the Civil War, was the candidate of the newly founded National Liberation Party (PLN).^[3] Liberal Mario Echandi tried to be the candidate from then-ruling National Union Party (PUN), but his candidacy was denied by the Electoral Tribunal due to purported irregularities in the adherents' signatures.^[3] This move was highly criticized by Figueres' opponents as an action in favor of Figueres' candidacy.^[3]

As PUN was unable to participate, the only other candidacy alternate to Figueres was made by the Democratic Party, which nominated wealthy industrial magnate Fernando Castro Cervantes.^[3] The three parties—PLN, PUN and Democratic—were all formerly united in opposition against the 1940s governments of Rafael Angel Calderón and his allies, who were viewed as having caused the civil war. Yet, after the war, such unification ceased.^[3]

The losing sides in the civil war, mostly the Republicans (Calderón supporters) and the Communists, were unable to participate as the Republicans' party was disbanded and the Communist Party was constitutionally outlawed.^[3] The Republicans were nonetheless allowed to participate in the legislative ballot with a provincial party in San José called the "Independent" Republican Party, and thereby gained some seats. As expected, Figueres won by a landslide victory.^[3]