Johnny Araya Monge

Johnny Araya Monge (2011)

Johnny Francisco Araya Monge (born April 29, 1957 in Palmares, Alajuela Province ) is a Costa Rican politician ( PLN ). He was mayor of the capital San José from 1998 to 2001 and 2003 to 2013 . From 2010 to 2013 he was also co-president of the international association of cities and local government UCLG . In the presidential election in 2014 he was the candidate of his party, but lost its competitor Solís in the second round.

Life

Johnny Araya's maternal uncle is Luis Alberto Monge Álvarez , who was President of Costa Rica from 1982 to 1986. His older brother Rolando Araya Monge was chairman of the PLN from 1995 to 1999, several times minister in PLN-led governments and 2002 unsuccessful presidential candidate.

Johnny Araya graduated from the Universidad de Costa Rica with a degree in agricultural science in 1980 . He then worked as an agricultural engineer for a few years.

As a student, Araya began his political engagement with the radical left Movimiento Revolucionario del Pueblo (MRP), but soon followed his family members into the established Partido Liberación Nacional (PLN), whose social democratic wing (named after the name of his family Arayismo ) he is assigned to. In 1982 he was elected to the San José City Council for the first time. From 1991 to 1998 he was the head of the city administration. In 1992 he took a month-long training course for local politicians from Latin America and the Caribbean at the Harvard Institute for International Development ( Harvard University ).

With the municipal reform of 1998 the office of a directly elected mayor was created. Araya won the first election and has been re-elected since then, most recently in 2011. Araya has been involved in local government associations at the Latin American and global level. From 1996 to 2000 and 2004 to 2006 he was Vice President for Central America of the Unión de Ciudades Capitales Iberoamericanas (UCCI), from 2004 to 2006 he was also Vice President of the Executive Committee, from 2008 to 2010 Co-President and again from 2010 to 2012 Vice-President. From 2004 to 2006 he was a member of the executive committee of the Federación Latinoámericana de Ciudades, Municipios y Asociaciones Municipalistas (FLACMA), the Latin American regional department in the UCLG World Association, from 2004 to 2007 a member of the UCLG World Council, from 2006 to 2012 co-president of FLACMA and 2010 to 2013 Co-President of UCLG.

As early as 2010, Araya applied for his party's presidential candidacy, but was defeated by his more conservative party colleague Laura Chinchilla , who ultimately won the election and became president. Since the Costa Rican constitution does not allow for immediate re-election, Chinchilla could not be re-elected in 2014 and the PLN nominated Araya as their presidential candidate. He then resigned his mayor's office. However, after the wafer-thin defeat in the first ballot, he stopped the election campaign before the required runoff election, as he figured out too few chances according to opinion polls. Thus, on April 6, 2014, his challenger Luis Guillermo Solís won the election for president.

In 2013 Araya married the dentist Sandra León. This is his fifth marriage, two of which (the third and fourth marriages) were to the same woman. He has four children.

Web links

• Johnny Araya's election campaign website

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hacer memoria no está de más: el pasado de izquierda radical de Johnny Araya. informa-TICO.com, December 8, 2013.
2. ^ Enrique Obregón se suma al movimiento de Johnny Araya. NEXO, November 29, 2012.
3. ↑ Johnny Soto Zúñiga: Arayismo vs Arismo Cambio Político, November 5, 2012.
4. ↑ Arayismo y por arismo lucharán cuotas en las distritales. Diario Extra, April 18, 2013.
5. ↑ Ricardo Barrantes Quirós: ¿Es cierto que Araya cuenta con una especialización de Harvard? El Financiero.
6. ↑ ^{a b} Johnny Francisco Araya Monge, Curriculum Vitae  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.   FLACMA.com
7. ^ UCLG Executive Bureau Members, 2010–2013. UCLG.org
8. ↑ Gloriana Corrales: Johnny Araya pide a Dios 'sabiduría y fortaleza' para afrontar proceso electoral. La Nación, January 31, 2013.
9. ↑ Gloriana Corrales: Johnny Araya y Sandra León colocaron un anillo más en sus dedos. ( Memento of the original from October 29, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. La Nación, July 6, 2013.