[1] He was minister of planning from 1968 to 1970 and minister of the presidency in 1970 during the administration of Jose Joaquin Trejos Fernandez (1966 - 1970); member of the board of the Costa Rican Central Bank from 1966 to 1969; congressman from 1990 to 1993, serving as president of the Legislative Assembly during the 1991 to 1992 period; and was elected Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS) in 2004.
He voluntarily stepped down from this post to return to his country to face allegations of financial wrongdoing during his presidential tenure in Costa Rica.
The reforms of the insurance and telecom sectors generated massive protests and were subsequently abandoned, but were later implemented when Costa Rica became part of the DR-CAFTA (Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement) in 2009.
[citation needed] After his term of office, Rodríguez worked as a consultant at Manatt Jones Global Strategies and as a visiting professor at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Rodriguez is widely considered a believer in free enterprise and a pro-market politician, who favors market reforms and the opening of the economy to foreign investment.
Rodriguez, at the time the president of Costa Rica, was quoted in the press as saying "It is important that the appropriate authorities not grant any permits for any type of public activities associated with the gay/lesbian festival".
Roman Arrieta, Archbishop of San Jose, and Father Minor de Jesús Calvo, a conservative priest that had at the time a program in TV.
He began his term on 15 September 2004 but served only 1 month, before stepping down when a former political collaborator accused him of having accepted a kickback from the French telecommunications firm Alcatel, which had been awarded a large government contract for cellular phone bandwidth during Rodríguez's tenure as president.
After resigning from his post, Rodríguez returned to Costa Rica on 15 October 2004 and was placed first under house arrest and two weeks later in jail, pending further investigations.
In 1997, while Rodríguez was a candidate for the Presidency of Costa Rica, he met Carlos Hank González, a Mexican politician and rich businessman.
"[7] In 2007 Oscar Arias recognizing China's economic growth ended Costa Rica recognition of Taiwan.
21 meses de cárcel para exejecutivo de PWS por sobornar a ticos - EL PAÍS - La Nación The Costa Rican media suggested that the unnamed officials might be Rodríguez, former INS director Cristóbal Zawadski, and former director of the INS's reinsurance department Álvaro Acuña Prado.
PWS allegedly inflated the policies of the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE) in order to create a discretionary fund of $1.6 million.
The other reinsurer that made payments to the company of Rodríguez was the firm Guy Carpenter Reinmex, based in Mexico.
[11] On 30 July 2013, The Prosecutor's Office requested the opening of a judicial investigation of alleged embezzlement charges against Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, according to the weekly newspaper The Tico Times.
The agreement with the Procuraduría General de la República, the legal representative of the Costa Rican state, is intended to compensate for the social damage brought about by the kickback scheme.
Alcatel Luct pays 10 million to Costa Rica's ICE over old bribery scandal On 27 April 2011 he was sentenced to 5 years in prison.