Miguel Ángel Rodríguez Echeverría (born 9 January 1940) is ÁngelRodría Costa Rican economist, lawyer, businessman and politician who served as President of Costa Rica from 1998 to 2002. He was minister of planning from 1968 to 1970 and minister of the presidency in 1970 during the administration of Jose Joaquin Trejos Fernandez (1966 - 1970); member of the board of the Costa Rican Central Bank from 1966 to 1969; congressman from 1990 to 1993, serving as president of the Legislative Assembly during the 1991 to 1992 period; and was elected Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS) in 2004. He voluntarily stepped down from this post to return to his country to face allegations of financial wrongdoing during his presidential tenure in Costa Rica. On April 27 of 2011 he was sentenced to 5 years in prison, but this ruling was later reversed in a December 2012 decision by an appeals court, which found him innocent of all charges.
Rodríguez came to the presidency as the candidate of the social Christian party (Partido Unidad Social Cristiana) with an agenda that included the opening of state-run monopolies in insurance and telecommunications, the rationalization of the public sector including increasing the role of the private sector in public infrastructure, trade liberalization, and the expansion and modernization of the social welfare system. The reforms of the insurance and telecom sectors generated massive protests and were subsequently abandoned, but were later implemented when Costa Rica became part of the DR-CAFTA (Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement) in 2009.
Early life
Rodríguez was born in San José. At the University of Costa Rica he obtained degrees in both economics (1962) and law (1963) and worked there briefly as an assistant professor of economics. He then attended the University of California, Berkeley in the United States, where he received both M.A. and PhD degrees in economics in 1966, having completed a thesis on monetary policy. Immediately after graduating he returned to Costa Rica to serve as Minister of Planning and member of the board of directors of the Costa Rican Central Bank, during the government of president José Joaquín Trejos.
In the 1970s and 1980s Rodríguez combined academic work as a professor of economics at the University of Costa Rica and at the Autonomous University of Central America with a business venture in cattle holding: Grupo Ganadero Industrial, S.A.
Rodriguez is also a devout Roman Catholic. His brother, Álvaro Rodríguez, currently serves as Superior General of the De La Salle Brothers.
Political career
Rodríguez was the President of the Legislative Assembly of Costa Rica from 1991 to 1992. Rodríguez ran three times for president. In 1990 he lost his party's nomination to Rafael Ángel Calderón. In 1994 he won his party's nomination but lost the election to José María Figueres. He finally secured the presidency in 1998. In spite of his experience as an economist and businessman, his presidency was generally regarded as ineffectual. Proposed free-market reforms, including a plan to end the state monopoly on telecommunications, fell apart under opposition from the trade unions of government employees and other groups, but he was successful in reforming the retirement system and opening it to private participation as well as giving in concession to a private company the operation of the main port in the Pacific Ocean (Caldera). After his term of office, Rodríguez worked as a consultant at Manatt Jones Global Strategies and as a visiting professor at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
Political views
Rodriguez is widely considered a believer in free enterprise and a pro-market politician, who favors market reforms and the opening of the economy to foreign investment.