Abel Pacheco

Abel Pacheco de la Espriella (born 22 December 1933, in San José) was president of Costa Rica between 2002 and 2006, representing the Social Christian Unity Party (Partido Unidad Social Cristiana – PUSC).^[1] He ran on a platform to continue free market reforms and to institute an austerity program, and was elected, in a second electoral round, with 58% of the vote in April 2002.

He was the sixth child of a banana farmer. Part of his childhood was spent in the province of Limón on the Caribbean coast, but he returned to the capital to complete his secondary education. He then went on, aided by scholarships he had won, to study medicine at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City and psychiatry at Louisiana State University in the United States.

During this time period, Pacheco participated in a counter-revolution attempt mounted from Nicaragua in 1955, led by former president Rafael Calderón. He drove an armored car with a mounted machine gun. This failed invasion was an attempt on overthrowing the government of José Figueres (1953–1958). The invasion, backed-up by Nicaragua's leader, Anastasio Somoza García, was condemned by the OAS and the international community. Costa Rica, having disbanded its formal army in 1949, set up a hastily prepared national force that repelled the invasion stopping the Calderón forces in the Hacienda Santa Rosa in northern Guanacaste.

During the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s Pacheco was a popular presenter of short programmes on Costa Rican television. During this time he continued to teach at the University of Costa Rica and personally attended to customers at the gentleman's outfitters, El Palacio del Pantalón, that he had established in downtown San José in the mid-1980s. He also wrote a series of novels and a number of popular songs.

On 1 February 1998 he was elected to serve as a party-list deputy in Costa Rica's unicameral Legislative Assembly, representing the province of San José for the PUSC.

In the run-up to the 2002 presidential election, the PUSC party convention selected him to be its candidate by an overwhelming 76% of the delegates' votes on 10 June 2001. His candidacy was seen as a victory for the rank-and-file members over the party's entrenched hierarchy.

In the first round of the election Pacheco received 38.6% of the vote: just short of the 40% needed to avoid a run-off. On 7 April 2002, in the second round – the first time the mechanism had been used since the rules were introduced – Pacheco got 58% of the vote, beating Rolando Araya of the social democratic PLN by a narrow margin.

Pacheco is sometimes dubbed "Pa'l techo" (to the roof), a joking expression which in Costa Rica means little bit crazy, for his extravagancy and his populist way of express himself.

Books

Pacheco de la Espriella is the author of a number of books, including both, fiction and non-fiction. Among other titles of the books that he penned are: Paso de tropa (1969), and Más abajo de la piel (1972). It's work has been translated to more than 20 different languages given it's importance to preserve the costarican cultural heritage.

Abel Pacheco was awarded with the prize " Citizen of the World" for his valuable contribuition to Culture and Literature around the world.

References