2,500 Votes Short, Ricardo Jiménez Faces Assassination Threats
By Theo Marchetti ·
Fugitives Castro Quesada and Colonel Vargas remained concealed in the Mexican Legation awaiting funds to flee while many predicted Ricardo Jiménez would be assassinated before assuming the presidency.
February 23, 1932. It is 4 p.m. in San José, and the mood is one of calculated instability. According to a telegram sent by the Minister in Costa Rica, Eberhardt, to the Secretary of State, the election returns are practically complete, but they do not offer a clean victory. Ricardo Jiménez, a man the public record identifies as a former president of the country, has fallen short of the required majority by approximately 2,500 votes.
In the high-stakes arithmetic of a contested election, 2,500 votes can be a chasm or a rounding error. Eberhardt notes there is a "remote possibility" that a recount might strip away enough fraudulent votes to hand Jiménez the win. But the telegram suggests that the official count is almost secondary to the reality on the ground. The machinery of power is already shifting, regardless of whether the tally matches the legal requirement.
Shelter in the Mexican Legation
While the vote counts are being debated, the opposition is in retreat. The record is explicit about the whereabouts of the losing side's leadership. Castro Quesada and Colonel Vargas are not in their homes or in the halls of government; they are "concealed in Mexican Legation."
They are not merely hiding; they are waiting. Eberhardt reports that Quesada and Vargas are awaiting "funds and favorable opportunity to flee the country." This detail transforms a political defeat into a fugitive operation, suggesting that the transition of power in San José was not expected to be a peaceful handover of keys, but a flight for survival.
Meanwhile, the third leader of this faction, Jorge Volio, remains at his home in San José. According to the telegram, he is "unmolested" for the time being. The contrast is sharp: two leaders in a foreign embassy waiting for the money to escape, and one left behind, seemingly tolerated by a government that has already issued orders for the "preventive arrest" of all three. These arrest warrants were requested by the relatives of a victim of "revolutionary bullets," yet Eberhardt suggests the government is unlikely to enforce them unless the leaders "circulate publicly."
"Many Predict and Some Threaten"
The most striking portion of the telegram deals with the physical survival of Ricardo Jiménez. Despite the shortfall in votes and the legal uncertainty surrounding the eligibility of Castro Quesada for the special elections scheduled for April 3rd, the diplomatic consensus in San José is that Jiménez is the inevitable successor.
However, that inevitability is caveated by a grim projection. Eberhardt writes that the opinion is "almost unanimous" that Jiménez will assume the presidency on May 8th, "barring his assassination which many predict and some threaten."
This is not presented as a vague anxiety, but as a specific political climate. In the world of diplomatic cabling, the phrase "some threaten" indicates a level of actionable intelligence that goes beyond general unrest. The telegram does not name the specific individuals making these threats, nor does it detail the plots, but it frames the assassination of the president-elect as the only remaining variable that could derail the political trajectory of the country.
24 of 43 Deputies
If the ballots didn't provide a clear mandate, the legislative math did. Eberhardt explains that Jiménez will dominate the Congress called into session on March 1st. By winning 14 deputies in the recent elections, Jiménez can count on the support of 24 of the 43 members of the entire membership.
This majority gives Jiménez the power to decide the eligibility of his rivals and to shape the terms of the April 3rd special elections. The legalities of the election are thus rendered moot by the reality of legislative control and the composition of the security forces. Eberhardt reports that the situation is "entirely dominated" by the placement of Jiménez's partisans in control of all military and police assets.
Aside from "minor and sporadic disturbances in interior," the capital is under control, and the path to the presidency is clear, provided the predicted violence does not materialize. The record leaves us with a snapshot of a government transitioning not through a clear electoral mandate, but through a combination of legislative leverage, control of the police, and the tactical displacement of opponents into foreign embassies.
Whether the threats mentioned by Eberhardt were ever formalized into a plot remains an open question in this specific record. The telegram ends with the expectation of a May 8th inauguration, leaving the fate of the fugitives in the Mexican Legation and the volatility of the interior provinces as the primary remaining tensions.