The National Integration Party ( es, Partido Integración Nacional) is a
political party
A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or p ...
in
Costa Rica
Costa Rica (, ; ; literally "Rich Coast"), officially the Republic of Costa Rica ( es, República de Costa Rica), is a country in the Central American region of North America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the no ...
. The party mainly endorses
perennial candidate
A perennial candidate is a political candidate who frequently runs for elected office and rarely, if ever, wins. Perennial candidates' existence lies in the fact that in some countries, there are no laws that limit a number of times a person can ...
Dr. Walter Muñoz Céspedes, a
San Jose medical doctor and five-time presidential candidate, normally with about 1% or less of the vote. In the
2018 election, it endorsed the candidacy of former minister and defense lawyer
Juan Diego Castro
''Juan'' is a given name, the Spanish and Manx versions of ''John''. It is very common in Spain and in other Spanish-speaking communities around the world and in the Philippines, and also (pronounced differently) in the Isle of Man. In Spanish, ...
reaching 9% of the vote, although Castro and the party angrily split pathways soon after the election.
The party first contested general elections in
1998
1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''.
Events January
* January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently s ...
, in which it won a single seat,
[ Nohlen, D (2005) ''Elections in the Americas: A data handbook, Volume I'', p175 ] taken by Walter Muñoz Céspedes, who was also their candidate in the presidential election, where he finished fourth with 1.4%. However, the party lost its seat in the
2002 elections in which it received 1.7% of the vote. In the presidential election that year Muñoz finished sixth with just 0.4%. In the
2010 elections the party received only 0.8% of the vote and remained without parliamentary representation, whilst Muñoz won just 0.17% of the vote in the presidential elections. In that election, the party's vice-presidential candidate was the historic leftist leader and professor
Álvaro Montero Mejía. However, two weeks before the election, the party stopped its campaign and endorsed Otton Solís, from
Citizens' Action Party, in an effort to build a progressive alliance against Laura Chinchilla, candidate of the
National Liberation Party. For the
2014 election Muñoz was, again, both presidential and legislative candidate gaining around 3000 votes (0.21%), the least voted candidate in that election. In
2016 Costa Rican municipal elections
Municipal elections were held in Costa Rica on 7 February 2016, in order to elect the mayors of the 81 Cantons of Costa Rica, cantons of the country plus a proportional number of aldermen (regidores) in each of the canton's municipal councils, a s ...
, the party won the position of syndic of the district of
Santa Cruz for its candidate Arcadio Carrera. In
2020 Costa Rican municipal elections, Carrera ran for Mayor of
Santa Cruz. Incumbent Vicemayor of Golfito, Hannia Herra, elected originally by the National Liberation Party in 2016 election, joined the party and is also a candidate for Mayor of Golfito for 2020. Carrera and Herra's platforms are mainly seen as progressive and even leftist, opposing domination of beach areas by big resorts in their respective cantons.
According to Muñoz the party opposes
taxes
A tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed on a taxpayer (an individual or legal entity) by a governmental organization in order to fund government spending and various public expenditures (regional, local, o ...
,
immigration
Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, ...
,
same-sex marriage
Same-sex marriage, also known as gay marriage, is the marriage of two people of the same sex or gender. marriage between same-sex couples is legally performed and recognized in 33 countries, with the most recent being Mexico, constituting ...
and
same-sex civil unions,
and it also supports a public monopoly of fuel distribution. The party supports state control of prices for medicine, which are unregulated in Costa Rica. It also has opposed reductions of the public healthcare budget for combating cancer. One of the party's congresswomen, Patricia Villegas, is especially known for her efforts on modernizing national laws on HIV, in order to promote the human rights of HIV positive people.
Notable members
*
Marvin Calvo Montoya
*
Eugenio Padilla Bonilla
Electoral performance
Presidential
Parliamentary
References
{{Authority control
Political parties in Costa Rica
Conservative parties in Costa Rica
Political parties established in 1996
Social conservative parties