Ottón Solís Fallas (born 31 May 1954 near Pérez Zeledón) is a Costa Rican politician. He graduated with a Bachelor of Economics from the University of Costa Rica in 1976 and gained a master's degree in economics from the University of Manchester in 1978. He is currently serving his second term as congressman, was a founding member of the Citizens' Action Party (PAC for its Spanish initials), and ran as its three-time presidential candidate. As an academic, he has taught at several universities in the United States and Costa Rica. Early political career Solís was the National Economics Minister during the Óscar Arias administration, acting in this capacity between 1986 and 1988. He also served as Arias' director of political planning. He was elected as a law-maker to the Costa Rican Legislative Assembly of Costa Rica from 1994 to 1998, serving with the National Liberation Party, the party he would abandon shortly thereafter. Founding the Citizens' Action Party In 2000, Solís, along with several other prominent PLN members, left the party to found PAC. They claimed that PLN's neoliberalism and corruption were reasons to break with the party. Solís was the first president of PAC and a three time presidential candidate. Since then, Solís has insisted that PAC exists for the sole purpose of fiscal and economic reform. In 2006, Solís led PAC against the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), which became a rallying cry for the party. In addition to opposing corruption and neoliberalism, one of the founding aims of PAC was to create a more open party system. The party's primaries are open. The party survived several internal ideological battles, adding prominent former Social Christian Unity Party (PUSC for its Spanish initials) members during the 2010 presidential campaign. For his part, Solís said he welcomed a changing ideology and new members. Presidential Campaigns In the 2002 Costa Rican presidential elections broke the prevailing bipartisan political model with 26% of the popular vote to occupy a strong third place in the Presidential race, behind PLN and PUSC. A virtual tie between former President Óscar Arias and Solís forced a recount in the 2006 presidential election. Ultimately, Arias won, though by only a few thousand votes over the 40 percent threshold required to avoid a runoff in an election marked by voter absenteeism. The Citizens' Action party won 17 of the 57 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, the