Partido Acción Ciudadana

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Party flag of the PAC

The Partido Acción Ciudadana (PAC, German 'Bürgeraktionspartei') is a center-left party in Costa Rica .

It was founded in 2000 on the initiative of Ottón Solís Fallas , a former member and minister of the Partido Liberación Nacional (PLN). Several of the founding members also left the PLN. In the 2002 election, the PAC won 14 seats in parliament (a quarter of the total) with an anti- corruption campaign. This put it close behind the two established large parties PLN and Partido Unidad Social Cristiana (PUSC), both of which had to accept significant losses. Your presidential candidate, Ottón Solís, received 26.2% of the vote. Although he only achieved third place, his strong performance at the expense of the candidates of the established parties triggered a second ballot for the first time in almost fifty years, since no candidate reached the 40% quorum . This ended the de facto two-party system that had prevailed in Costa Rica until then .

In contrast to the PLN, the PAC - like other left parties, trade unions and non-governmental organizations - took a clear position against the Central American Free Trade Agreement with the USA and the Dominican Republic (DR-CAFTA or CAFTA-DR-US). In the 2006 election she was able to expand her success. This time it got 17 seats (30% of the total), Solís came second in the presidential election and was defeated by PLN candidate Óscar Arias Sánchez by a difference of only 1.2 percentage points. Arias' signing of CAFTA was approved by popular vote in 2007. The PAC was able to establish itself as the second strongest party in the country and take the place left of center in the political spectrum of Costa Rica, which the PLN had given up through its commitment to neoliberal reforms. In the 2010 election, however, the number of seats fell to 12. Ottón Solís, who ran for the third time as a presidential candidate, came second again, but this time with a large gap to the winner Laura Chinchilla (PLN). In 2014, the PAC presidential candidate was Luis Guillermo Solís Rivera . Since his rival Johnny Araya of the conservative ruling party PLN had dropped out of the election campaign, Solís had entered the race as the sole candidate and won the election for president on April 6, 2014 with 77.8%.

The presidential election 2018 won with Carlos Alvarado Quesada again a candidate of the PAC.

The support of the PAC is stronger in the cities than in rural areas, its strongholds are in the more developed metropolitan region in the central valley of Costa Rica.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Merike Blofield: Care Work and class. Domestic Workers' Struggle for Equal Rights in Latin America. Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park PA 2012, p. 95.
  2. ↑ Manuel Alcántara Sáez: La escala de la izquierda. La ubicación ideológica de presidentes y partidos de izquierda en América Latina. In: Nueva Sociedad , September / October 2008, No. 217, p. 82.
  3. ^ Sergio Alfaro Salas: Política y Partidos Políticos. EUNED, San José 2011, p. 183.
  4. ↑ Kevin Casas-Zamora: Paying for Democracy. Political Finance and State Funding for Parties. ECPR Press, Colchester 2005, p. 70.
  5. ^ Roy C. Nelson: Harnessing Globalization. The Promotion of Nontraditional Foreign Direct Investment in Latin America. Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park PA 2009, p. 42.
  6. ^ Casas-Zamora: Paying for Democracy. 2005, p. 69.
  7. ^ Edward D. Mansfield, Helen V. Milner : Votes, Vetoes, and the Political Economy of International Trade Agreements. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ 2012, p. 3.
  8. ^ A b Roberto Echandi: The CAFTA-DR-US Negotiations on Financial Services. The Experience of Costa Rica. In: Financial Services and Preferential Trading Arrangements. Lessons from Latin America. World Bank, Washington DC 2010, p. 270.
  9. ^ Nelson: Harnessing Globalization. 2009, 43-44.
  10. ^ Salvador Martí i Puig: Political parties. The left. In: Handbook of Central American Governance. Abingdon / New York 2014, p. 245.
  11. ^ Margaret Tyler Mitchell, Scott Pentzer: Costa Rica. A Global Studies Handbook. ABC-CLIO, 2008, p. 221.