Career
The biography of Abel Pacheco de la Espriella, the former President of the Republic of Costa Rica is not typical of many leaders. The reason is that before obtaining the post, he practically wasn’t connected with politics.
His entering politics started in February, 1998, when he was elected as a party-list deputy in Costa Rica’s unicameral Parliament representing the Social Union Christian Party. On June 10, 2001, during one of the sessions, the delegates of this party chose Pacheco (he got 76 votes) to be a candidate from the party at the next presidential elections. The fact that that Pacheco, who hadn’t been holding a high post in the party and who was chosen as the candidate, was an example of a bright political victory over the strictly hierarchical party system.
During the first round of presidential elections Pacheco got 38.6% of votes (he didn’t get a few tenths to win a clear victory). Nevertheless the results of the second round that was on April 7, 2002 made everything clear. Abel Pacheco de la Esperiella greatly surpassed his opponent Ronaldo Araya Monge and got 58% of votes.
During his inauguration speech the President claimed the beginning of the new era of “peace with the environment”, blamed a predatory process of oil extracting and promised to change Costa Rica into an “ecological state”, where future oil exploration, development of gold recovery and deforestation would be suspended. He promised to make the environmental protection to be the true value of mankind’s development.
The next steps of Abel Pacheco de la Espriella as the leader of the state showed that he was sincere. The President of Costa Rica made efforts to slow down the rates of development of oil (he initiated adoption of a law about extracting hydrocarbons). He managed to create a stable model of ecological development of the country, Nowadays more than 95% of power consumption of Costa Rica depend on eco-friendly renewable resources.