Rodrigo Arias in Disfavor

President Laura Chinchilla barely had time to drop her hand after being sworn in as Oscar Arias's successor than Arias's brother, Rodrigo Arias, 64, made it clear he was starting to campaign for the 2014 National Liberation party nomination.

It has not done him much good -- a Unimer poll shows him third in popularity with a meager 18%, well behind San Jose mayor Johnny Araya (58%) and former minister and ex-lawmaker Antonio Alvarez Desanti (24%).

Of course, Arias has undoubtedly been damaged by a lengthy investigation by a Legislative Assembly committee for questionable uses of funds when he was President Arias's Minister of the Presidency, one a $2 million grant for poor citizen housing.

No evidence has surfaced that Don Rodrigo profited in any way, but the fact that he was chief of staff and the prime administrative officer for his brother brings his judgment and/or attention to detail into some question.

In late 2010 Rodrigo Arias was seen racing around the country campaigning for municipal officers from his party. He had announced his intention to run on May 8, 2010, four days after Chinchilla (also of his party) took office.

But Arias also had to buck a definite Tico aversion to such unseemly grasping at the presidential standard. The same Unimer poll of 1,202 citizens showed 66% opining that campaigning too early was not good for the country.

Araya, 53. for years a high official in San Jose's government, lost out for the nomination to Chinchilla in 2010. He is the brother of Rolando Araya who was the unsuccessful candidate when he ran against President Abel Pacheco in 2002 and has all but retired from politics since.

The still-youthful looking Alvarez, 52, has run for the Liberation nomination many times since he was young until 2005 when he abandoned his party in protest to the free trade treaty neo-liberal politics of Arias, forming his own party to run unsuccessfully.

Also in the Unimer poll was the Citizen Action party (PAC) showing that strongman Otton Solis who founded the party in 2001 is still a favorite at 56% despite his sometime ironhanded approach to his deputies in the Legislative Assembly who depart from the party line.

Trailing him is former lawmaker and feminist booster Epsy Campbell with 38%.