Rafael Ángel Calderón Guardia

Ian Holzhauer, "The Presidency of Calderón Guardia" (University of Florida History Thesis, 2004)

His son, Rafael Ángel Calderón Fournier, founded a new party in 1984 and became president of Costa Rica fifty years after his father did in 1990 in a transformed Costa Rican society and with a much more right-wing approach to governing. His daughter Alejandra became a left-wing political activist whose career on a socialist platform was cut short after a deadly road accident in 1979. And his youngest daughter Maria del Rosario became an author and educator. Calderon Guardia's second wife Rosario Fournier Mora survived her husband until 1999 when she died at 79.

Upon the victory of Figueres' armed forces, Calderón fled to Nicaragua and then to Mexico where he worked again as a doctor to support his family. In 1958, Calderón Guardia was allowed to return to Costa Rica and was elected as congressman, but he did not serve as such. He ran for the presidency again in 1962 but lost. He was also named ambassador to Mexico (1966–1970). He died in 1970.

In 1948, Calderón ran for president again. Otilio Ulate Blanco defeated him by 10,000 votes in a very questionable election (since Calderon's party actually received more votes for Congress than Ulate's party at a time when the Costa Rican society was heavily polarized, suggesting the non-likelihood of a "split vote"). Ulate was proclaimed winner by the two of three members of the Electoral Board. However, the Congress, controlled by Calderón's party, declared the election to be null and void and that a new election would be held.

The charismatic José Figueres Ferrer launched a coup against Picado's government in 1948. In the civil war, the Picado government forces were backed by the communists who believed that Ulate was a threat to the social legislation that had been established under Calderon Guardia's government. After 2,000 deaths, the civil war ended and Figueres seized power. Figueres is noted for seizing power by force, establishing the framework for a successful modern Democracy (which lasts to this day), disbanding the military, and then relinquishing power. He went on to become a democratically elected president on two occasions with his National Liberation Party (named after his National Liberation Army). Figueres is celebrated as a national hero in Costa Rica to this day, while Calderón's image remains diminished, in spite of his crucial social reforms.

Calderón Guardia remains one of the most controversial figures in Costa Rican history. His characterization as Figueres' primary antagonist served to strengthen this position in favor of the pro-Figueres consensus of having Figueres the "hero of the revolution" after the Figueristas won the civil war. Thus, while his social reforms had an enormous impact on Costa Rica, after the congress made the elections of 1948 void and his failed attempts to regain power in 1948 and 1962 hurt his reputation.

In 1944, Calderón supported Teodoro Picado Michalski to succeed him as president. Picado was also backed by Archbishop Sanabria, and the former Communist leader Manuel Mora in the 1944 election. There were accusations of government fraud during the election, which was a usual practice in Costa Rica. However, Picado's 2:1 margin of victory suggests that he would have won regardless of these instances. Picado's presidency was quieter and more conciliatory than that of Calderón. But both Calderón and his enemies were preparing for the upcoming showdown in 1948, when Calderón would be constitutionally eligible again to run for president.

In 1940, with the support of conservative coffee elites, Calderón was elected President of Costa Rica. Shortly after becoming president-elect, he met with American President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor on March 25 and 26 of that year in Washington, D.C.

Calderon Guardia responded to the demand for reform when he assumed the presidency in 1940, and, in doing so, he offered the electorate a viable alternative to the Communist solutions to social questions. His inaugural address outlined measures by which his government proposed to foment the social, cultural and economic development of the nation. He promised particular attention to the less well developed areas of Costa Rica, such as Guanacaste and the Atlantic region which had been largely abandoned by the United Fruit Company. He pledged himself to a revision of the entire system of taxation on the just basis of capacity to contribute. He promised to give a new impulse to rural credit, to provide for a program of land distribution through the National Bank, and to initiate a program of low-cost housing. He proposed to found a national university that would orient public opinion on social questions and promote the general progress of the republic. As contribution to the welfare of all, he promised to institute a modern system of social security.

From 1940 forward, the various contestants in the political arena could not disregard Calderon Guardia's functioning program with its sharp focus on social issues. He was determined, even if it entailed intimidation, to carry out his plans. His program and the methods he used to put it into effect therefore became inextricable parts of the social issue. His work of reform challenged the domination of the elite, which consequently became politically more active, aware and cohesive.

He became the Municipal President of San Jose at the age of 30 and in 1934 he won a seat in congress as a member of the Republican Party before being backed as a presidential candidate by then President Leon Cortes Castro in 1940.

Rafael Ángel Calderón Guardia (March 8, 1900 – June 9, 1970) was a Costa Rican medical doctor and politician, who served as President from 1940 to 1944.

Rafael Angel Calderón Guardia was born on 8 March 1900 in San José. In his youth, Calderón Guardia studied in Costa Rica, France and Belgium, where he married Yvonne Clays Spoelders, who was later to be the first female diplomat of Costa Rica. After finishing his studies in Belgium, Calderón Guardia became a medical doctor and practicing surgeon, which he would remain for most of his life, even after serving as president.