Skip to main content

Jose Maria Figueres Olsen Biography

José María Figueres Olsen

(San José, 1954) Costa Rican politician who was President of the Republic (1994-1998).Jose María Figueres Olsen was the son of Karen Olsen Beck and José Figueres Ferrer, a leader of Catalan origin considered the father of modern Costa Rica, founder of the National Liberation Party (PLN) in 1951 and president of the country three times.

José María Figueres Olsen

He completed his primary studies at the La Lucha school and at the Humboldt school and secondary at Lincoln School.He graduated from West Point Military Academy with a degree in industrial engineering, and later expanded his studies at Harvard.At the end of his studies, he joined the companies founded by his father, which at that time were going through difficult times, mired in the economic crisis that devastated Costa Rica at the beginning of the eighties of the 20th century.José María Figueres managed to save family businesses and also created new ones that considerably increased the family fortune.

During the first term of President Óscar Arias (1986-1990), Jose María Figueres Olsen held the position of director of the Instituto Costarricense de Ferrocarriles (INCOFER), with which he began his political activity.Subsequently, he was director of the Board of Administration and Development of the Atlantic Slope (JAPDEVA), Minister of Foreign Trade and Minister of Agriculture.

After the death of his father in 1990, sectors of the PLN proposed that promote his candidacy for the presidency, to which he dedicated himself for some time, except for a brief hiatus in 1991 to do a master's degree at Harvard University.The official designation was reached in June 1993, after defeating other candidates in a national convention, including Óscar Arias's wife, Margarita Peñón.In the elections held on February 6, 1994, he was elected President of the Republic of Costa Rica by defeating by few votes the official candidate of the Christian Democratic Unity Party (PUSC), Miguel Ángel Rodríguez Echeverría, of Christian Democratic tendency.They were the closest elections in the history of the country, which were defined by only two points of difference.

After his victory in the elections, Figueres Olsen reiterated his commitments made during the electoral campaign to improve education and health and boost the country's progress.Thus, during his tenure, the health care program based on the so-called EBAIS (Basic Equipment for Comprehensive Health Care) was designed and developed, which was very effective in improving health indices.

Important investments were also made in science and technology, telemedicine and environmental conservation programs and strategies, in order to create the foundations to advance towards the information society and sustainable development.With this, it was possible to attract high-tech companies such as Intel and many others.He also applied a plan to reduce public debt that included higher taxes and a privatization policy.He was succeeded in the presidency by Miguel Ángel Rodríguez Echeverría, winner of the 1998 presidential elections.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Johannes Diderik Van der Waals Biography

Johannes Diderik Van der Waals (Leiden, Netherlands, 1837-Amsterdam, 1923) Dutch physicist.Professor at the universities of The Hague (1877) and Amsterdam (1908), he is known for the equation of the state of real gases (Van der Waals equation) that allows a closer approximation to physical reality than the ideal gas equation , by taking into account the existing interaction forces between the molecules; This contribution led to the award, in 1910, of the Nobel Prize in Physics.He also developed research on electrolytic dissociation, on the thermodynamic theory of capillarity and on fluid statics.He also studied the electrostatic attractive forces (Van der Waals forces) exerted between the constituent molecules of matter, which have their origin in the distribution of positive and negative charges in the molecule. JD Van der Waals Among the contributions of Van der Waals stands out the aforementioned refinement of the laws (discovered by Robert Boyle and Joseph-Louis Gay-Lussac) ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Francisco Galí Biography

Francisco Galí (Seville, 1539-Mexico, 1591) Spanish navigator.In 1582 he undertook a trip to the coast of North America by order of the viceroy of Mexico Pedro Moya.He explored some of the islands of the Hawaiian archipelago, the coast of Baja California and the San Francisco Bay.He wrote an account of his travels.
Post a Comment
Read more

Gerardo Dottori Biography

Gerardo Dottori (Perugia, 1888- id ., 1977) Italian painter.Signatory of the manifesto of aeropainting in 1929, his work is characterized by an aerial perspective painting of great lyricism ( Miracle of lights, flying ).
Post a Comment
Read more

Joseph Kasavubu Biography

Joseph Kasavubu (Tshela, 1910-Boma, 1969) Politician of Zaire.Defender of the interests of the Congolese vis-à-vis Belgium and of their independence, he actively participated in organizations aimed at achieving these ends, mainly in ABAKO (the nationalist movement "Alianza de Bakongo").He was the first president of the newly proclaimed Republic from 1960 to 1965, once independence from Belgium was achieved. Joseph Kasavubu In an early stage of his life, influenced perhaps by the education received from the Catholic missionaries, he served as a lay teacher.Subsequently, in 1942, he became a senior officer in the civil service, the most important position that a native of the Congo could access within the Belgian colonial administration.At the end of that decade he turned all his efforts into different Congolese independence movements that fought against the Belgian authorities, at the head of cultural organizations and student groups that were really masked political fo...
Post a Comment
Read more

Johannes itten Biography

Johannes Itten (Süder-Linden, 1888-Zurich, 1967) Swiss painter.He was closely associated with the German school known as the Bauhaus, of which he was one of its founding members. He began his studies in 1904, and entered a seminary on teachers in Bern.After these, he worked as a teacher.In keeping with his heterogeneous taste, he enrolled in courses in mathematics and natural sciences, which had great influence when he was later commissioned to direct the "Vorkus" or preparatory course for studies at the Bauhaus. Johannes Itten In 1913 he moved to Stuttgart, where he received drawing and painting classes at the city's Academy of Art, where he followed the courses taught by Adolf Hoezel.The same year that he moved to Vienna, in 1916, he came into contact with the artists gathered around the publication called Der Sturm (The Storm), with whom he exhibited his first works.Until his installation in Weimar to attend to Walter Gropius' request that he be part of th...
Post a Comment
Read more

Guido adler Biography

Guido Adler (Eibenschitz, 1855-Vienna, 1941) Austrian musicologist.He was a disciple of Bruckner and edited the Monuments of Austrian music (1894-1938).He is the author of studies on Wagner (1904) and Mahler (1916) and of a Manual of the history of music (1924).
Post a Comment
Read more

Hasday ibn Shaprut Biography

Hasday ibn Shaprut (Jaén, 915-Córdoba, 970) Hebraic-Spanish politician and patron.He was in the service of Caliph Abd al-Rahman III and actively intervened in his foreign policy.Appointed head of the Jewish aljamas of al-Andalus, he maintained relations with the eastern and North African Talmudic schools.Patron of his coreligionists, he laid the foundations of Jewish development in al-Andalus.
Post a Comment
Read more

José Leonardo Alenza and Nieto Biography

José Leonardo Alenza y Nieto (Madrid, 1807-id., 1845) Spanish painter.He was trained at the Academia de San Fernando, and his first works, on a historical and allegorical theme, such as Fernando VII mourned by the arts and sciences , are framed in the line that then prevailed within the the highest artistic institution. Later, under the influence of Goya's work, he turned towards a more personal style and gave the best of himself in paintings, drawings and engravings with scenes of customs, imbued with a great narrative spirit , which are a reflection of the Madrid of the time and are full of picaresque details. With these works and some others, such as Satire of romantic suicide , he established himself as one of the most outstanding figures of Spanish Romanticism.He was also a great portraitist.Only the presence of Goya explains why he did not reach a higher level in the panorama of Spanish painting.
Post a Comment
Read more

Hua guofeng Biography

Hua Guofeng (Also called Hua Kuo-Feng; Hunan, 1921-Beijing, 2008) Chinese communist leader.Hua Guofeng began his political career in his native province of Hunan, of which he became deputy governor (1958-67).After the triumph of the "Cultural Revolution" instigated by Chairman Mao Zedong, he passed to the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (1969).However, it was part of the openness line of Chu En-Lai and Deng Xiaoping, in opposition to the orthodoxy of Lin Piao. Hua Guofeng Driven by the growing weight of the reformists, in 1973 he acceded to the Politburo and in 1975 he was appointed Minister of Public Security and Vice President of the Government.After the deaths of Chu En-Lai and Mao Zedong, he succeeded the former as head of the Chinese government and the latter as chairman of the Communist Party (1976-81). From both positions he collaborated with Deng Xiaoping in the elimination of the old leftist guard represented by Mao's widow and her ...
Post a Comment
Read more