Editing Rafael Leonardo Callejas (section)

==1988 Elections==
For the following elections, Rafael Callejas once again enjoyed the confidence of the National Party. The external elections for the selection of candidates for the presidential elections of 1989, which took place in the month of December, were purely symbolic. Rafael Leonardo Callejas, maximum leader of the movement or internal political current of the National Party called the Rafael Callejas National Movement (MONARCA), previously negotiated with the leaders of the other movements giving them a quota of positions in the state apparatus.

In 1989, during these elections, Mr. Rafael Callejas faced as his main opponent a young  Carlos Roberto Flores Facussé from the Liberal Party, former minister of the presidency during the government of Roberto Suazo Córdova. According to the journalist, Juan Ramón Durán "there were" between these two candidates "more coincidences than differences." "Both political leaders are young... owners of a business vision in managing public and private interests, pragmatic, respectful of military and North American influence." This suggested that "the social origin and ideological proximity of the candidates"was equally conservative.

Despite the similarity between these two candidates; the incapacity and lack of leadership within his own party of the outgoing president, Azcona Hoyo, "the internal struggles of the Liberal Party and the erosion of two successive periods" of Liberal government "in a decade of crisis, as well as the successes of Rafael Leonardo Callejas in the management of his party and his campaign led the Liberals to defeat in 1989 and a large victory for the National Party."

"At the end of the electoral contest, "Callejas obtained around 52% of the votes, the Liberals 43% and the rest is divided between the PINU-SD with 1.8% and the Christian Democracy with 1.4 percent...The victory of Callejas is explained by the failure of the two liberal governments to manage the country's economic crisis and alleviate the conditions of unemployment and poverty of the majority of the population. The population "looked" for an alternative in Callejas."According to the historian, Juan Arancibia, the victory of "Rafael Leonardo Callejas, was due to the fact that this candidate" resorted to innovative techniques in his campaign of marketing, he restructured and energized his party and presented himself attending to the most sensitive points of public opinion: the economic crisis and the departure of the Nicaraguan [[Contras]].