Ezequiel Gutiérrez Iglesias

Who was Ezequiel Gutiérrez Iglesias?

Ezequiel Gutiérrez Iglesias was a Costa Rican politician.

Ezequiel Gutiérrez Iglesias was born in Cartago, Costa Rica, on 23 August 1840. He was the son of Francisco de Paula Gutiérrez y La Peña-Monje and Ramona Iglesias Llorente. He married Josefina Braun Bonilla.

Gutiérrez Iglesias pursued secondary studies in Guatemala and graduated with a bachelor's degree in law from the University of St. Thomas, where he was also a professor of grammar and philosophy.

He held numerous public offices, especially in the educational, diplomatic, and judiciary fields: a teacher at the Cartago Liceo de Niñas, functionary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and associated portfolios, Attaché and Chargé d'affaires for Costa Rica in the United States of America, Secretary of the Costa Rican Legation in Europe, Inspector General of Schools, Representative for Cartago in the National Constitutional Convention, and Counselor for the Costa Rican Legation in Peru and Chile.

Gutiérrez Iglesias began his work in the Costa Rica Supreme Court of Justice as a minister and from 1876 to 1877 was a magistrate, an office from which he resigned to serve as the Costa Rican chargé d'affaires in Great Britain from 1877 to 1878. For his opposition to the dictatorship of President Tomás Guardia Gutiérrez, he was exiled from 1879 to 1882. After that, he was interim Judge of the National Treasury, Minister Plenipotentiary of Costa Rica in the United States of America, Financial Agent in Great Britain and Minister Plenipotentiary in El Salvador. In 1886, he was newly elected as a magistrate, an office which he again resigned in August 1889 to fulfill the office of Secretary of Foreign Affairs and associated portfolios, from which he in turn resigned the next month and then again fulfilled from 1890 to 1891. In 1886, he was a member of the San José Charities Board and in 1893 Minister Plenipotentiary of Costa Rica in Nicaragua and Honduras. The Union Democratic party proposed him as a candidate for the presidency in the elections of 1906.