Home Appointments President
President
Costa Rica Government
| Appointee | Laura Chinchilla |
|---|---|
| Role | President |
| Organisation | Costa Rica Government |
| Domain | Politics |
| Start | 8 May 2010 |
| End | 8 May 2014 |
| Notes | First woman President of Costa Rica |
Institutional context
The President of Costa Rica is the head of state and head of government, directly elected to a four-year term in a country that has not had standing armed forces since 1948. From 1848 through May 2010 every holder was male.
Career path
Laura Chinchilla Miranda (born 1959) earned a master's degree in public policy from Georgetown University. She held the cabinet positions of Vice Minister of Public Security (1994–1996) and Minister of Justice (1996–1998) under José María Figueres, and served as Vice President and Minister of Justice and Peace (2006–2008) under Óscar Arias.
Appointment
She won the February 2010 presidential election in the first round with approximately 47 percent of the vote and was sworn in on 8 May 2010. She is the first woman President of Costa Rica.
Tenure
Four years. Tenure included continued public-security reform, conflict over a tax-reform proposal, and a border dispute with Nicaragua over the Isla Calero. She left office on 8 May 2014 and was succeeded by Luis Guillermo Solís.
Cluster context
Chinchilla's 2010 appointment is the fourth elected first-woman head of state in Latin America. The 2010–2011 period saw three Latin American firsts in eighteen months — Chinchilla, then Rousseff in Brazil (2011) — alongside the broader Caribbean pattern (Charles 1980, Chamorro 1990, Moscoso 1999) and the Andean–Southern Cone wave (Bachelet 2006, Fernández de Kirchner 2007).