Calderonism
[6] Calderón formed an alliance between the Catholic Church and the communist party to carry out socialist reforms - to this end, Calderonism is considered a precursor to liberation theology.
[11][12] At the same time, the opposition accused Calderón of authoritarianism, corruption and persecution of political opponents and ethnic minorities (particularly Germans, Italians and Japanese after the Pearl Harbor attacks with Costa Rican joining World War II as part of the Allies).
Calderón's Labor Code provided a wide variety of privileges for the workers and trade unions, including enforced minimum quality of working conditions, the right for association, collective bargaining, the right to strike, and a judicial mechanism that would force the employers to consider and implement the demands of trade unions, was the court to rule in their favor.
Calderonism was strongly supported by the poor and the workers, although the opposition composed of middle-class and business sectors became increasingly organized and powerful.
[15] Calderón directly from 1940 to 1944, his chosen candidate, Teodoro Picado Michalski won the 1944 Costa Rican general election as part of a Republican-Communist coalition named Victory Bloc and in the middle of increasing political tensions.
Calderón went into exile in Nicaragua, and in December 1948 he invaded Costa Rica with support from the government of Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza García, but the expedition, known as the counterrevolution, failed.
[18] Calderón moved with his family to Mexico, and in 1955 he undertook a second invasion of Costa Rica, with the support of Somoza García, Rafael Leónidas Trujillo and Marcos Pérez Jiménez, but his forces were defeated.
Figueres (who ruled de facto for 18 months before giving power to Ulate in 1949) was a formal candidate by the newly formed National Liberation Party winning the 1953 Costa Rican general election.
In 1958, the presidential candidate for the National Union Party, Mario Echandi, promised to bring back Calderón and family from exile and sign a general amnesty if elected and received the vote in bloc of the Calderonistas.
On December 17, 1983, at the last session of the National Assemblies of the parties that formed the Unity Coalition, they agreed to dissolve and merge into one.
With only one pre-candidate left, the convention is suspended and on December 2, 1984, Rafael Ángel Calderón Fournier was elected as presidential candidate.
[25] On February 2, 1986, the electoral result favored the rival National Liberation Party's nominee, Oscar Arias Sánchez by a difference of 6.5%; however, PUSC managed to elect 25 deputies while its presidential candidate had received 45.8% of the valid votes, making clear the existence of a two-party system.
Shortly after a movement is generated, which starts mainly from the PUSC deputies, to formally request Rafael Ángel Calderón Fournier to be a candidate for the presidency again.
Despite this the figure of Dr. Abel Pacheco de la Espriella emerges, who with the charisma he had won for several years working on television, and due to his position as deputy of the Legislative Assembly of Costa Rica, is named presidential candidate for the 2002 election winning the election and making PUSC won for the first time twice in a road.
Shaken by corruption scandals,[27][28] The scandals even caused Calderón and Rodríguez to be arrested, prosecuted and in Calderón's case condemned,[29] the unpopularity of the Pacheco administration and the resurgence of the new Citizens' Action Party the party suffered a terrible debacle and its candidate in 2006, Ricardo Toledo Carranza, obtained only 3% of the votes.
After Calderón's conviction for corruption on October 5, 2009, he withdrew his presidential candidacy being replaced by the then deputy of the party Luis Fishman Zonzinski, who obtained a low electoral support, again, of 3%.
[36] Calderonism is described as populist; it gained the loyalty of the working class while disempowering the old political elite of Costa Rica, especially the once dominant big coffee growers.
[37] Apart from greatly favouring trade unions, Calderonism also heavily encouraged the formation of worker cooperatives and included provisions that gave them special rights.
[15] Calderón also argued that his political doctrine was based on ensuring the "material dignity" of the workers, and denounced the banks and financial industry of Costa Rica.
Pro-Calderón clergy supported this alliance, with Archbishop Víctor Manuel Sanabria Martínez writing: "The Rerum Novarum [is not] anti-socialist, anti-communist, anti-red.
According to Calderón, under liberalism "the needs of the subaltern classes were forgotten as they were overexploited in their jobs and their right to participate of the national wealth was negated" and "they were defrauded and despoiled of their capacity to shop in an attempt to favor capitalist and export industries".
Calderonism attacked capitalism as a system that was "the rejection of Costa Rican democracy: [a choice] to die of starvation or to accept the painful and degraded ways of work implanted by owners.
Reflecting papal encylicals, Calderonist clergy regarded wages as a "thermometer of social justice" and argued that state intervention in the economy and guarantee of salary regulation and distribution of jobs was mandatory and legitimized by the Catholic Church's encyclicals.
I will put all my efforts into achieving this goal, because I am convinced of the positive influence that religious teachings has on cultural progress and in raising the ethical standards of our people.
He proposed to solve the problem of landless peasants in Costa Rica by seizing "fincas grandes" (large plantations) and distribute them to the poor.
Moreover, he revealed a project to provide poor peasant with financial support as well as state-hired technicians that would ensure the productivity and stability of their newly acquired land.
Along with the communist PCCR, Calderón invited a peasant, union leader and a parish priest to a meeting to represent the national alliance that Calderonism signified.
Calderón continued to combat the accusations by bringing up his Catholicism, but his open cooperation and meetings with communist leaders intensified the attacks.
Calderocomunismo became an official political identity of the PVP and Costa Rican trade unions, which praised Calderón's reforms for greatly diminishing the influence of the wealthy and foreign companies on the economy.
[15] However, Fournier and his party represented many conservative views of the national business elite, such as opposing state intervention of the economy.
