Teodoro Picado Michalski, Presidente de Costa Rica

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teodoro_Picado_Michalski

Teodoro Picado Michalski (10 January 1900 – 1 June 1960) was the President of Costa Rica from 1944 to 1948.

Overview

Teodoro Picado governed Costa Rica immediately after the presidency of Rafael Angel Calderón Guardia and preceded the de facto junta of José Figueres. One of the most erudite presidents to govern Costa Rica, Picado was more moderate and not nearly as inflammatory as either his predecessor or successor.

Election as President

Before reaching the presidency, don Teodoro, in his capacity as President of the Constitutional Congress, had a very important and active role in approving the Social Reforms of the government of Dr. Rafael Ángel Calderón Guardia (1940-1944).

Calderón heavily supported Picado during the 1944 election, through means legal and illegal. The campaign season was particularly ugly by Costa Rican standards, at times turning violent. According to recent, documented studies, by historians Fabrice Lehoucq and Ivan Molina, though there was some minor electoral fraud in a few voting tables far removed from the Capital, it was not enough to have changed the outcome of the landslide election. Picado won by a 2:1 margin.

Presidency

In spite of the questioned election, Picado was a far less inflammatory figure than Calderón, who had angered the country's coffee and mercantile elite.

Picado's Administration enacted many laws to modernize the State. The most prominent was the electoral reform of 1945, which created a modern Electoral Code of Laws and a Supreme Tribunal of Elections. The reform was partly a reaction to the outcry over the 1944 campaign season. The Electoral Code remains in full force today, and has been a guarantee to the Nation's continued democratic elections. This Electoral Reform was saved by an Executive Order known in Costa Rican history as the "Blank Check", decreed by President Picado on the November 21, 1945 and published in the Official Gazette the day after. This Decree permitted the inclusion of all the major innovations contemplated in the Electoral Code of Laws into the legislation in force by Congress on December 11, 1945.

1948 Revolution and Exile

In the 1948 election for Picado's successor as Costa Rica's President, Picado supported his predecessor, Rafael Angel Calderón Guardia, who hoped to win a second term.

Former President Calderón lost the popular vote in a tight election to Otilio Ulate. This was the first time that elections were being held under the new Electoral Code of Laws and governed by the Tribunal of Elections and certain anomalies were committed with regard to the vote counting deadlines and the loss of ballots, and as a result, Calderón supporters in the Legislature invalidated the election results in accordance with the Constitution. In March–April 1948, the protests over the election results grew into a revolution. José Figueres with the help of "La Legion del Caribe" of which Fidel Castro was a prominent member (See Dr. Rosendo Argüello "Quienes y Como Nos Traicionaron"), led the revolution, defeating the Costa Rican Army, loyal to Calderón and President Picado. With more than 2,000 dead, the 44-day civil war resulting from this uprising was the bloodiest event in 20th-century Costa Rican history.

Contrary to popular belief that he was deposed by the armed uprising led by José Figueres Ferrer over the disputed elections for his successor, don Teodoro never resigned the presidency and completed his Constitutional Term while on an Official Visit to the Republic of Nicaragua, leaving his vice-president, Santos Leon Herrera, in charge of the country as acting-President.

Due to the difficult and persecutory political climate prevalent in the country during the de facto Provisional Government of José Figueres, in the aftermath of the revolution, he remained in Nicaragua, where he lived in exile until his death. His body was brought back to Costa Rica and is buried in the town of his ancestors, Paraíso, Cartago.

Other Biographical Information

During his life, Teodoro Picado was an eminent historian, who wrote many varied books and essays on the subject matter, and was a respected member of the Academy of Geography and History of Costa Rica and the Academy of the Spanish Language of Nicaragua. He also served as Secretary of Education in the third administration of Ricardo Jiménez (1932-1936) and was Director of the Institute of Alajuela (1930), where he left a lasting impression upon his disciples. In addition, he taught Master Classes on Civil Law in the Old Law School, starting in 1937. He not only spoke several languages (English, Polish, French, and could converse in Russian, Italian & German) but was learned in jurisprudence and classical studies. He became a lawyer in 1922. He was the disciple of three-time President Ricardo Jiménez and was an educator of the stature of Omar Dengo.

He was the son of the doctors Teodoro Picado Marín and the Polish native Jadwiga Warnia Michalska Wodziwodzka, who met and married in Switzerland while they both were studying medicine. His great-grandparents were Teodoro Picado Solano married to Rita Morales García; Manuel Antonio Marín married to María Ambrosia Irola Alvarado; Josafat Warnia-Michalski married to (?); Konstante Wodziwodski married to Concordia Spreglewska Clabon de la Tour. His grandparents were José Francisco Picado Morales married to Eulogía Marín Irola and Josef Warnia-Michalski married to Kamila Wodziwodska Spreglewska.

In his first marriage Teodoro Picado Michalski married Mercedes Lara Fernández and had two children, Teodoro Picado Lara and Clemencia Picado Lara. In his second marriage with Etelvina Ramírez, they had one daughter, María Cecilia Picado Ramírez, who lives in Venice, Italy, and has two daughters. He also has relatives in Poland and elsewhere. Clemencia Picado Lara(†) has one son, named Fernán Soto Picado. Teodoro Picado Lara has 5 children: Susan, Janet,Teodoro, María and Nancy(†).

Presidencia (1944-1948)
Retrato oficial de Teodoro Picado.

Durante su administración Costa Rica ingresó como miembro fundador en las Naciones Unidas, se promulgó el primer Código Electoral y una importante ley de Ordenamiento Fiscal, se creó el Instituto Geográfico Nacional y se normalizaron las relaciones entre Costa Rica y los países europeos antes ocupados por Alemania, que se habían visto interrumpidas de hecho durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial.

Ante la presión de la opinión pública para exigir del gobierno garantías en cuanto a la pureza electoral, materializada en la Huelga de Brazos Caídos de 1947, se establecieron un Tribunal Electoral y una serie de mecanismos novedosos para las elecciones de febrero de 1948.

Sin embargo, ante el triunfo del candidato opositor Otilio Ulate Blanco, el aspirante derrotado, que era el expresidente Rafael Calderón Guardia, planteó una petición de nulidad al Congreso Constitucional, que en marzo de ese año declaró nulos los comicios presidenciales, aunque no los legislativos, cuyos resultados sí favorecían a los partidos gobernantes.

Como consecuencia de estos hechos, se alzó en armas José Figueres Ferrer, cuyas fuerzas derrotaron a las tropas del gobierno. El Presidente Picado viajó a Nicaragua al parecer, para solicitar ayuda militar al dictador de ese país, Anastasio Somoza García, [cita requerida]pero los Estados Unidos en media Guerra Fría no concretaron la posibilidad debido a la anterior alianza política de Calderón Guardia con Manuel Mora Valverde y el PVP histórico (partido comunista) por las Garantías Sociales.

A pesar de ello, el presidente cede ante Somoza y el 17 de abril llegaron tropas de la Guardia Nacional de Nicaragua a la población costarricense de Villa Quesada, por vía aérea, y tuvieron algunos enfrentamientos con fuerzas insurgentes que actuaban en las vecindades.[cita requerida] Los Estados Unidos formalmente no apoyaron, y el 19 de abril las tropas nicaragüenses iniciaron su retiro.

Ese mismo día, ante el peligro de una intervención combinada de Somoza y de las tropas Norteamericanas de la Zona del Canal en Panamá (ver "Con Manuel: Devolverle al pueblo su fuerza" de Addy Salas Guevara; Editorial UCR; pp. 162–175; San José,1998), y por iniciativa de Manuel Mora Valverde (PVP), y del liderazgo insurgente de José Figueres Ferrer (después del Pacto de Ochomogo) se firmó en la Embajada de México en San José un pacto para poner fin a la guerra civil. Al día siguiente, Picado llamó al ejercicio temporal de la presidencia al Tercer Designado Santos León Herrera y abandonó Costa Rica con destino a Nicaragua.