Costa Rica had been a democratic republic since 1848. 1940s Costa Rica politics was dominated by Rafael Angel Calderon Guardia and his National Republican Party. Calderon was a right wing figure who had support of the Catholic Church and the elite. However he alienated the rich with his policies and attacked the German community present in the country. Teodoro Picado Michalski was the successor of Calderon, and he strengthened the military, which was used to keep peace, and many forces aligned with the National Republican Party fought against the opposition. The National Republican Party, while right wing, had formed a coalition with the People's Vanguard Party, the Costa Rican communist party, led by congressmen Manuel Mora. Among those affected by the party was Jose Figueres Ferrer, a businessman who was exiled in 1942 for criticizing Calderon. He began training the Caribbean Legion hoping to overthrow authoritarian Latin American governments. In the 1948 Costa Rican general election, the opposition candidate Otilio Ulate under the National Union Party won, but the incumbent Republicans with the communists annulled the results, alleging fraud. This resulted into political chaos which would break out into the Costa Rican Civil War. This would begin when the National Liberation Army, formed and led by Figueres, exchanged fire with government troops.