He is best known worldwide for his role in the signing of the Esquipulas Peace Agreement which is regarded as the crucial plan which led to the eventual end to the series of civil wars that took place throughout Central America, most notably in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala, during the 1980s.

With the monetary portion of the award he started the Arias Foundation for Peace and Human Progress, an advocacy group for demilitarization, women's rights and conflict resolution through dialogue.

Through this group Arias helped to settle conflicts throughout Latin America, participating in the process to demilitarize Haiti and Panama.

During public appearances he promised to provide scholarships to poor families so their children could stay in school and not have to work (a promise he fulfilled on his first day in office), and spoke about the urgency of signing the Central American Free Trade Agreement in order to create high-paying jobs for Costa Rica's youth.

[2] With the pre-election opinion polls favoring Óscar Arias, he did not foresee such stiff competition from his closest rival Ottón Solís.

Additionally he thinks that the lowered trade barriers will cause a flood of cheap food products from the United States to come in and this will hurt the internal market for small-scale farmers.

[6] Otto Guevara Guth is the co-founder, along with Rigoberto Stewart and Raúl Costales Domínguez, of the Movimiento Libertario, a libertarian party.

Specifically he sees that eliminating regulations which, according to him, affect the development of the economy, as being a part of his program to protect political liberty.

Toledo is the candidate for the ruling Social Christian Unity Party (PUSC) and used to be a close friend of president Abel Pacheco.

In an interview with newspaper Al Día Álvarez said that one thing that he believes negatively affects the country is unregulated immigration of Nicaraguans.

[10] Polemic over the Central American Free Trade Agreement was influential in the campaign as many candidates and parties took positions in support or reject of the treaty and Costa Rican society was split over the issue.

[13] PUSC on the other hand, affected by corruption scandals,[14][15] suffered a humiliating defeat passing from be the first parliamentary party with 19 deputies to only 5.

Broad Front's seat went for Spanish émigré José Merino and was the return of the Left in the Parliament after one period without representation.

[12] The recently founded party Unión for Change made by PLN's dissident Antonio Álvarez Desanti did not won any seat.