Elections to the Assembly for a New Constitution were called on December 8, 1948 by the then de facto Junta provisional government presided by José Figueres.

[2] Also, due to the recent civil war, the parties of the losing side, mainly the Republicans (Calderonistas) and the Communists were outlawed.

[5] Yet, even when the party was loosely liberal as Ulate himself, most historians agree that PUN's Assemblymen didn't share much ideological or programmatic coherence other than being Ulatistas.

Unlike the other parties, the Social Democrats had a coherent ideology and political philosophy to follow, and even though it had very few seats (only 4) their members were very influential thanks to their intellectual weight, including among other future president Luis Alberto Monge and notorious academic Rodrigo Facio.

Among the committee members were Facio, jurist Fernando Baudrit Solera and other notorious intellectuals.