Rodrigo Chaves began a four-year term as Costa Rica's president on Sunday, taking office with a lengthy list of reproaches for his predecessor and the country's political class while promising great change.
SAN JOSE, Costa Rica — Rodrigo Chaves began a four-year term as Costa Rica's president on Sunday, taking office with a lengthy list of reproaches for his predecessor and the country's political class while promising great change.
“Not only are we going to put the house in order, we are going to rebuild it!” he vowed. “This is the sign our our times. It is the urgency for change that cannot be delayed, the cry of a democracy that we will not let disappear!"He dismissed the idea he said was held by many that the Central American nation is “ungovernable.”
The conservative economist, who was briefly finance minister under Alvarado, had cast himself as the outsider in the race, noting that his Social Democratic Progress Party had never won at any level before this year. Chaves won despite being dogged by a scandal that drove him out of the World Bank, where he was accused of sexual harassment by multiple women, was eventually demoted and then resigned. He has denied the accusations.