Republican Party (Costa Rica)

The Republican Party (Spanish: Partido Republicano, PR) was a liberal political party in Costa Rica formed in 1897. It emerged from a coalition of political clubs opposed to the re-election of President Rafael Yglesias Castro and became one of the country’s principal political parties during the early 20th century. It officially governed from 1910 to 1917, and 1924 to 1928, with members holding office at various points.

Following an internal split, a successor organization—the National Republican Party—was formed and successfully returned Ricardo Jiménez Oreamuno, one of the original founders of the Republican Party, to the presidency. Most of the party’s remaining supporters subsequently aligned with the new organization. After poor electoral results in the 1934 legislative elections, the Republican Party ceased to operate and effectively dissolved.

The party first contested national elections in 1902, when Máximo Fernández Alvarado was its leader and presidential candidate. Fernández finished second to National Union Party candidate Ascensión Esquivel Ibarra.^[1] Fernández finished second again in the 1906 elections. Ricardo Jiménez Oreamuno was the party's presidential candidate in 1910. Although Fernández received the most votes in the 1913 presidential elections, he failed to secure a majority and declined to take up the post;^[2] Congress subsequently elected Alfredo González Flores as president. In the 1915 parliamentary elections, the party received 67% of the vote.

Costa Rica was briefly a de facto one-party state under President Federico Tinoco Granados for the 1917 and January 1919 elections. Although the Republican Party received only 4% of the vote in the 1921 parliamentary elections, Jiménez Oreamuno was elected president in the 1923 general elections, which saw the party receive 51% of the vote in the parliamentary elections. The party nominated Carlos María Jiménez Ortiz as its presidential candidate in 1928, but he was defeated by Cleto González Víquez of the National Union Party. In the 1932 elections, Jiménez Ortiz was the party's presidential candidate again, but he finished third behind Jiménez Oreamuno (now running as the National Republican Party candidate) and Manuel Castro Quesada of the Republican Union.