In the 1948 election Calderón was again candidate for the presidency. The National Electoral Court provisionally declared the opposition candidate Otilio Ulate Blanco provisionally elected, but Calderón Guardia filed a fraud and presented to Congress a nullity of the presidential elections, although not of the legislative ones, in which his supporters had obtained a majority. On March 1, 1948, Congress -where the alliance of Calderonists and communists had a majority-, annulled the presidential elections. This caused a civil war, in which the government forces were defeated militarily by those of rebel caudillo José Figueres Ferrer. Calderón went into exile in Nicaragua, and in December 1948 he invaded Costa Rica with support from the government of Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza García, but the expedition - known as the counterrevolution - failed. Calderón moved with his family to Mexico, and in 1955 he undertook a second invasion of Costa Rica, with the support of Somoza García, Rafael Leónidas Trujillo and Marcos Pérez Jiménez, but his forces were defeated. The rebel forces seized the border town of Villa Quesada on 12 January.