1889 Costa Rican general election
3–5 November 1889 (popular vote)
1 December 1889 (electoral college) | |||||||||||||||||
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Presidential election | |||||||||||||||||
467 members of the Electoral College 234 votes needed to win | |||||||||||||||||
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Estimated results by province | |||||||||||||||||
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12 of the 23 seats in the Constitutional Congress | |||||||||||||||||
This lists parties that won seats. See the complete results below. | |||||||||||||||||
| Costa Rica portal |
General elections were held in Costa Rica in 1889 to elect the president and half of the Constitutional Congress. Opposition candidate José Joaquín Rodríguez defeated the government-backed candidate Ascensión Esquivel by a wide margin, marking the first instance in which an incumbent-backed candidate was defeated at the polls. The election is also notable as the first in Costa Rican history in which organized political parties formally participated.
The date of 7 November is commemorated in Costa Rica as "Democracy Day" in recognition of the liberal government’s acceptance of the electoral victory of the conservative opposition. This outcome represented a significant departure from earlier political practices, as authoritarian governments had previously been the norm.