Costa Rica Government - An Overview
Like the United States the government of Costa Rica is a democracy. All citizens are guaranteed the rights of legal equality, property ownership, to gather in groups, and freedom of speech. Similar to the United States it too had divided its government into three branches Executive, legislative and judicial.

However it starts to differ a bit here. The Executive branch of the Costa Rican government contains a president, two vice presidents and then the cabinet. Its Legislation consists of a national assembly which consists of a proportional representative members elected every 4 years. The president may only serve one four year term during a life time. Assembly members are allowed to serve a second term.

The two main parties in Costa Rica consist of the National Liberation party and the more conservative social Christian Unity party.
The Executive branch- Consisting of one president, two vice presidents and the executive ministers bring the total number of members for the executive branch to 17. This is called the Governmental Council.

Legislative branch – Consists of the National assembly. This branch has the power to amend budget, appoint the Comptroller General to control executive overspending and appoints the judges for the Supreme Court, the term is for a minimum of 8 years but can be longer unless they are removed by vote.

Judicial branch – This consists of currently twenty four Supreme Court judges. It is their responsibility to select the judges for both civil and criminal courts. The courts also have the job of appointing a tribunal called the Special Electoral Tribunal whose job it is to oversee each election. They are also responsibly like the United states Supreme court to oversee that the constitutional rights of individuals have not been infringed upon and to help keep maintain the checks and balance system of government.

Other notables- Costa Rica has seven provinces each one is governed by a presidential appointed governor. The provinces are then divided down into counties and then districts each one ruled by a council. These provide the electoral districts for the National Assembly.

As you can see the Costa Rica government is remarkably similar to the United States government but retains the differences necessary to work for its individual situation. That is one of the wonderful things about democracy; it works in any form for any country provided that the basic principles remain intact.