(QCOSTARICA) The man who gave up being the mayor of San José to become president, to then turn around and quit the presidential race, now wants his old job back.
But, the road to the mayor’s office for Johnny Araya in February 2016, as a Partido Liberacion Nacional (PLN) candidate is not an easy one, with road blocks from within the party, from members who want to maintain alive the four year suspension imposed by the party’s ethics tribunal.
Araya, who was mayor of San Jose from 1998 and 2013 said, “I have kept alive aspirations to return to San Jose.”
Araya says the suspension, imposed on him for his withdrawal from the 2014 presidential campaign, is a persecution by some party members. He did not point fingers, but it is well known that former president and currently president of the PLN party, Jose Maria Figueres, is planning on running for a second term in 2018.
Figueres, for his part, was pleased by the party decision to maintain the sanction against Araya, saying “in the Liberacion Nacional nobody over steps a decision or resolution.”
However, Araya wish to run as a PLN mayoral candidate is not completely out.
The party did approve a motion to ask the Constitutional Court (Sala IV) to resolve the suspension. PLN legislator, Antonio Alvarez Desanti, who proposed the motion to the National Assembly, said that the party’s decision is a sign of political maturity.
The Sala IV is being asked for a decision as quickly as possible, before August 15th, the deadline for the mayoral race nominations.