Exiled Leader’s Son Sworn as President of Costa Rica : Central America: He vows to lead the democratic awakening in the region and tackle economic woes at home.

Rafael Angel Calderon, whose father’s Costa Rican political career ended in exile, was sworn in Tuesday as president of Central America’s most enduring democracy.

Invoking his father’s one-time populist ideals and briefly acknowledging the foreign activism and peacemaking role of his predecessor, Oscar Arias Sanchez, Calderon promised to tackle Costa Rica’s deficit. He also pledged to help lead, by example, a region that until only recently has been torn by civil war and violence.

“Only the combination of economic growth and social justice can immunize democracies against the totalitarian dangers of the extreme right and the extreme left,” he told a capacity crowd at the 25,000-seat National Stadium.

During his 40-minute speech, Calderon was flanked by all of Central America’s heads of state, including Nicaragua’s new president, Violeta Barrios de Chamorro. Most of the leaders, like Calderon, are newly elected moderate conservatives.

Calderon said regional troubles appear to have eased and that many of the Central American nations have edged toward Costa Rica’s century-old example of democratic stability.

“Being now halfway down the road toward a better future, it is for us, the presidents of Central America, to assume the responsibility of leading our peoples into a new stage in the process, in which the great goal will no longer be to silence the uproar of cannon fire, but to take off at last toward economic development,” he said.

First Lady Barbara Bush, appearing calm and proud on her first solo venture abroad to represent her husband, was cheered when she led the U.S. delegation into the stadium. Earlier, she had delivered a letter from her husband, in which he pledged to work with Calderon to “bring peace, democracy and development to the region.”

Calderon’s Feb. 4 victory ended eight years of rule by Arias’ National Liberation Party.

It was also the 10th consecutive election in Costa Rica since Rafael Calderon Guardia, president from 1940 to 1944, sparked a civil war after he tried to nullify the vote in his losing 1948 electoral campaign. The family was driven into exile in Nicaragua, where Rafael Angel Calderon, known as Junior, was born.

Calderon, 41, has tried to follow in his father’s footsteps almost since he graduated from the University of Costa Rica law school in 1972. He served in various government posts and lost two presidential campaigns.

But in his most current bid, at the head of the Social Christian Unity Party, he had the help of Roger Ailes, President Bush’s campaign wizard. Ailes refashioned Calderon’s image from that of a hard-liner on foreign issues into that of a man of the people--a reflection of his father’s early political life.

Ailes was part of the U.S. delegation Tuesday along with John H. Sununu, the President’s chief of staff, and his wife, Nancy; former Puerto Rican President Luis Ferre, and the Bushes’ son, Jeb.

Calderon promised to reduce the $35-million deficit of Costa Rica, a country the size of West Virginia with a population of 2.2 million, by forcing “self-sacrifice.”

He said he will encourage new markets and bolster tourism but insisted he will keep his campaign promise to build 160,000 housing units by his term’s end.