Rafael Calderón Fournier (born 1949) was elected president of Costa Rica in 1990, succeeding the popular Oscar Arias Sánchez, who had spearheaded the Central American peace plan. Calderón, who served until 1994, was president at a time of widespread national concern over economic decline and drug trafficking.

Rafael Calderón Fournier, son of former Costa Rican president Rafael Calderón Guardia y Muñoz (1940-1944) was born in 1949 in Nicaragua, where his father had taken refuge following the 1948 civil war. The elder Calderón's supporters had tried to reinstall him in the presidency after an election in which the opposition charged him with fraud. The young Calderón went to school in Mexico. The family returned to Costa Rica and he was elected to the National Assembly in 1974. From 1978 to 1980 he served as foreign minister. In 1982 Calderón lost...