From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Laura Chinchilla Miranda
(born 28 March 1959)
[1]
served as the President of
Costa Rica
from 2010 to 2014. She is Costa Rica's first female president. She is the sixth woman to be elected president of a
Latin American
country. She was one of
Oscar Arias Sanchez
's two
vice presidents
. She was his administration's Minister of Justice.
[2]
She was the governing
PLN
candidate for President in the
2010 general election
. She won with 46.76% of the vote.
[3]
Chinchilla was born in
Carmen Central, San Jose
in 1959. Her father was Rafael Angel Chinchilla Fallas. He was a former comptroller of Costa Rica.
[
source?
]
Her mother was Emilce Miranda Castillo. She married Mario Alberto Madrigal Diaz on 23 January 1982 and divorced on 22 May 1985. She had a son in 1996 with
Jose Maria Rico Cueto
, a Spanish lawyer who has a
Canadian citizenship
; Chinchilla married him on 26 March 2000.
[4]
He died in April 2019, aged 84.
[5]
Chinchilla graduated from the
University of Costa Rica
. She received her
master's degree in public policy
from
Georgetown University
.
[6]
[7]
Before politics, Chinchilla worked as a
NGO
consultant
in Latin America and Africa. She specialized in judicial reform and public security. She served in the
Jose Maria Figueres Olsen
administration as vice-minister for public security (1994?1996) and minister of public security (1996?1998).
From 2002 to 2006, she served in the
National Assembly
as a deputy for the
province of San Jose
.
[8]
Chinchilla was one of two vice-presidents elected under the second Arias administration (2006?2010). She resigned the vice-presidency in 2008 in order to prepare her run for the presidency in 2010. On 7 June 2009 she won the Partido Liberacion Nacional (PLN) primary with a 15% margin over her nearest rival, and was thus endorsed as the party's presidential candidate.
Her term ended in 8 May 2014.
