Founding and 2002 election PAC was founded in December 2000 by several dissidents from Costa Rica's two traditional parties, the
National Liberation Party and the
Social Christian Unity Party. Originally an anti-corruption party, it startled the Costa Rican political arena with a very strong showing in the
2002 general elections. In the presidential vote, party founder and candidate
Ottón Solís was able to secure 26% of the votes – an unprecedented amount for a third party in Costa Rica – and force a runoff between the PLN and PUSC. The party won 21.9% of the popular vote and 14 out of 57 seats in the
Legislative Assembly, making it the third strongest political force in the legislature. A few months later, however, after a series of internal disputes, six of the party's 14
deputies resigned from the party, leaving PAC with only eight seats.
2006 election In the February 5, 2006
parliamentary election, the party won 17 out of 57 seats. Ottón Solís ran for
president again, losing to the PLN's
Oscar Arias Sanchez by less than 2% of the votes. Arias only won by a few thousand votes over the 40 percent threshold required to avoid a runoff. The number of
spoiled ballots was larger than the margin between Solís and Arias. After the 2006 election, Ótton Solís took a year away from politics to teach in the
United States. Former PLN Secretary General
Luis Guillermo Solís' name began being circulated at meetings of the "ungroup," an informal gathering of PAC officials, led by former deputy Alberto Salom. Several PAC officials wanted Luis Guillermo Solís to run as a deputy in
San José and as a vice presidential candidate in 2010. and attended meetings of the "ungroup" shortly thereafter in anticipation of the 2014 election.
2018 election The
third national convention was held between only two candidates, both former ministers on PAC's first cabinet; Minister of Economy
Welmer Ramos and Minister of Labor
Carlos Alvarado. Ramos was an economist, more socially conservative and close to the "ottonista" faction, whilst Alvarado was writer and political scientist, much more socially liberal and younger, close to the "progresista" faction. Alvarado won the primary election becoming PAC's first time candidate during government. Despite suffering from a diminished popularity due to the
Cementazo scandal affecting the image of
Luis Guillermo Solis' government, Alvarado's progressive positions boost him into the second round as a counter-reaction after the growth of
Evangelical Christian singer and ultra-conservative candidate
Fabricio Alvarado after the backlash against the
IACHR's ruling ordering the country to legalize
same-sex marriage, winning by a wide margin in the second round with 60% of the votes and more than 1,300,000 votes over the 39% and around 800,000 votes of his rival, becoming the second time that the party achieved more than a million votes in second round. ==Platform==