Laura Chinchilla

Laura Chinchilla Miranda (; born 28 March 1959) is a Costa Rican political scientist and politician who served as President of Costa Rica from 2010 to 2014. She was one of Óscar Arias Sánchez's two Vice-Presidents and his administration's Minister of Justice. She was the governing PLN candidate for president in the 2010 general election, where she won with 46.76% of the vote on 7 February. She was the eighth woman president of a Latin American country and the first woman to become President of Costa Rica. She was sworn in as President of Costa Rica on 8 May 2010. After leaving office, she taught at Georgetown University in 2016. Chinchilla is co-chair of the Inter-American Dialogue think tank and the vice-president of Club de Madrid. Chinchilla previously served as a Fellow at the Georgetown Institute of Politics and Public Service. Early life Laura Chinchilla was born in the Desamparados district of San José, the oldest child of her family with three younger brothers. Her father is Rafael Ángel Chinchilla Fallas, who served as comptroller of Costa Rica from 1972 to 1987, and maintained general popularity among the public. Her mother is Emilce Miranda Castillo. She attended the University of Costa Rica where she obtained a degree in political science, and she then attended Georgetown University in the United States for a master's degree in public policy. She then returned to Costa Rica to work as a policy consultant for security and judicial reform. Chinchilla married Mario Alberto Madrigal Díaz on 23 January 1982. They divorced on 22 May 1985. Chinchilla met her second husband, José María Rico Cueto, a Spanish lawyer who held Canadian citizenship, in 1990 while both were working as consultants for the Center for the Administration of Justice at the Florida International University in Miami, Florida. The couple had a son, José María Rico Chinchilla, in 1996. Chinchilla married Rico on 26 March 2000. Chinchilla's marital history and the child she had out of wedlock did not significantly affect her political life—despite the country's significant Catholic population—due to a culture in Costa Rican politics of avoiding personal attacks.