Abel Pacheco

Abel Pacheco (1933- ), Costa Rican doctor, politician, businessman, and television personality, President of Costa Rica (2002-2006). Born in San José, he studied medicine at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and then psychiatry at Louisiana State University. In 1959 he began practising at the National Hospital in San José—he served as director of the Psychiatric National Hospital between 1973 and 1976. That year he began a career in television, presenting a variety of history and medical programmes that turned him into a popular personality. He also developed a reputation during the 1980s as a poet and writer of folk songs, as well as establishing a clothes retailing business.

Pacheco was elected to the Legislative Assembly in 1998 for the Social Christian Unity Party (PUSC; Partido de Unidad Socialcristiana), and in 2001 was overwhelmingly elected his party’s candidate for president. In the run-off election in 2002 he won with 58 per cent of the vote and succeeded Miguel Angel Rodríguez Echeverría as president. He pledged to overcome growing poverty, but the economy faltered because of low coffee prices. He was succeeded by former president Oscar Arias.