In 1948, a rebel group called National Liberation Army commanded by caudillo José Figueres Ferrer led a rebellion against the government of then President Rafael Angel Calderón Guardia and his communist allies.

However, after this time, PLN will be clearly Costa Rica’s dominant party in the political system as only when the opposition ran united were capable of winning.

It is after this time that Costa Rica enters a two-party system with PLN and PUSC as the two main political forces and between the two 90% of the vote casting.

However, in the 2000s, a new party was founded by many former PLN and PUSC leaders, among them former minister and deputy Ottón Solís, former First Lady Margarita Penón (Óscar Arias’ ex-wife) and notable writer and journalist Alberto Cañas.

Commentary on the poll pointed to an inherited fiscal crisis, border friction with Nicaragua, and natural disasters the previous November as contributing factors to public discontent.

For the run-off election Araya resign his candidacy arguing that he had no more money to run a campaign and that all polls showed him losing by wide margin.

[14] The party, as then main opposition to Luis Guillermo Solís's government, went into a very divisive primary in which then deputy Antonio Álvarez Desanti won over former president José María Figueres.

Desanti, who had previously left the party whilst criticizing it for corruption and abandoning its social-democratic ideology, had the support of Oscar Arias and his brother Rodrigo, however.