REPRODUCED AT THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES DECLASSIFIED Authority Statele fer lahz By Me NARI Date 24 18 chaos of the Government and turn over a well ordered administration to his successor in a free election. From time to time there were evidences that the Vanguardia felt that the President was not backing their legislative program with sufficient interest, and in July the attempted to force his hand by staging a public demonstration in front of the Presidential Palace. At the same time, Manuel Mora made a radio address in which he stated that his followers still supported the President, but that in return they expected him to press for action on several fronts.
This the President publicly promised to do.
During 1945 a pronounced feature of the political picture was the continued disunity of the opposition. At one time, León Cortés announced his retirement from public life, a move which was greeted with general skepticism that was later to be borne out. The opposition was divided in three general sectors: first, the group of professional politicians which had long been associated with León Cortés; second, a growing number of persons manifesting a desire to follow the lead of Otilio ULATE, owner and editor of the chief opposition mouthpiece, DIARIO DE COSTA RICA; and third, a group of young professional men, originally connected with the Centro para el Estudio de Problemas Nacionales, who later founded the Partido Social Demócrata. On the fringe of the opposition there were also always to be found a small and irresponsible group having no other program than the attempt to instigate a revolution, allegedly with no other objective than promoting the good of the country, but from which pre.
sumably they would expect substantial rewards. It is perhaps fortunate for the President that the opposition was in just this condition, for the feeling of mistrust between Cortés, Ulate, and the leaders of the Social Democrats prevented any really effective alliance which, given the provocation, might have resulted in serious trouble. Moreover, the men urging direct action were not those persons of sufficient stature to lead a successful move against the Government, and the leaders with a nation wide following apparently lacked both the desire and the initiative to do so. As a result, then, the history of the opposition in Costa Rica for the past two years has been one of petty bickering within its own ranks, with a surface unity attained only in the few weeks immediately preceding the midterm elections, These same elections of February 10 may prove to be a turning point in the Picado Administration. In the first place, the President greatly increased his personal prestige throughout the country by his obviously sincere attempts to bring about an absence of governmental interference with the electoral machinery. This attitude on the part of the Presi.
dent has been recognized even by members of the opposition itself, with the result that they have been deprived of one of their