November 2020

Background

I know you are all anxiously waiting the results of the 2020 election. I am too but since I’m here in San Juan I have the Puerto Rican elections to follow as well. Elections here occur every four years, and every office is up for grabs. And this year there is a plebisicite on the question of statehood.

This year’s political season has clearly been affected by last years upheavals during which, amid several days of protests, Governor Ricardo Roselli Nevares was forced to resign as governor. The local newspapers had unearthed and printed a trove of emails (the dump became known as RickyLeaks) showed Roselli Nevares and his advisors as sexist, misogynist, and generally dismissive of the Puerto Rican people. Click here for an earlier post on that subject.

Roselli Nevares tried to ram his choice for successor, Pedro Pierluisi, through the legislature but the Puerto Rican Supreme Court blocked that. Wanda Vazquez Garced, the next in line, became interim governer even though she claimed to not want the job. Vazquez Garced seemed to grow into the job but was defeated during her party’s primary by Pedro Pierluisi, who is one of six candidates running for governor.

Roselli Nevares, Pierluisi and Vazquez Garced belong to the New Progressive Party (NPP), a conservative party with members affiliated with both the mainland Democratic and Republican parties. The NPP generally favors statehood. The Popular Democratic Party (PDP) is more centrist and aligns mostly with the mainland Democrats. It generally favors maintining the commonwealth status. The Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP) is more social-democratic and advocates for independence from the United States. In recent elections, the NPP and PDP were pretty evenly matched, with PIP garnering about thee percent of the vote.

It remains to be seen how the events surrounding RickyLeaks will affect this years election.

Governor

So here are the candidatates for governor.

• Charlie Delgado Altieri – PDP. Mr. Delgado is a long time mayor of Isabela, a toewn on the on the northwest coast. Delgado Altieri defeated San Juan Mayor  Carmen Yulin Cruz in a messy primary characterized by missing ballots and delays in ballot counting.
• Pedro Pierluisi – NPP. Mr. Pierluisi beat interim governor Wanda Vazquez in the party primary. Mr. Pierluisi had previously served for eight years as Resident Comissioner, Puerto Rico’s non-voting representative to Congress.
• Juan Dalmau Ramirez– PIP.
• Alexandra Lugaro – Citizen Victory Movement Party.
• Cesar Vazquez Muniz– Dignity Project.
• Eliezer Molina – independent,

Local political commentators have much to say about the candidates. Political Science Professor Jose Rivera Gonzalez sees Delgado Altieri as “a bland candidate, who does not have much charisma.” Political analyst Jorge Goldberg Toro sees Delgado Torres’s twenty year tenure as mayor as a positive, especially since he acculumated a budget reserve over those years.

Goldberg Toro notes that NPP candidate Pedro Pierluisi, although experienced by virtue of his service as Resident Counselor, “must drag everything that has happened with the NPP during his four-year term.” Rivera Gonzalez says of Pierluisi: “His unsuccessful moves in the summer of 2019, trying to usurp power by imposing himself as the obvious person to replace Governor Roselli Nevares, having been appointed as Secretary Of State without confirmation, left a bad taste in my mouth.”

Of PIP candidate Juan Dalmau, Colberg Toro says he was a “good, serious and respected senator.”

Resident Commissioner

The nominees for the position of Resident Commissioner are as follows. The Resident Commissioner represents Pueto Rican interests in Congress as a non-voting member,

• Jenniffer Gonzalex Colon, NPP, incumbent,
• Anibal Acevedo Vila, PDP
• Luis Roberto Pinero, PIP
• Zayaira Jordan Conde, Citizen’s Victory Movement
• Ada Norah Henriquez, Project Dignity

Statehood

Another island-wide vote is a referendum on statehood. As noted above, the NPP has generally been pro-statehood. One has to wonder if the NPP drama of last year spills over into this vote. One thinks it might, given this statement by Interim Governor Vazquez: “The only party that will lead us to statehood is the New Progressive Party. Statehood is the only alternative that guarantees permanent union with the United States of America and our U. S. citizenship.”

The referendum is a simple yes – no vote. Here is a summary of the process. Congress is given the authority in Article IV, Section s, clause 2:  “The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States…”

Typically, Congress has adopted the following steps:

• The territory holds a referendum to determine the people’s desire for or against statehood.
• If a majority votes for statehood, the territory petitions Congress
• Both the House and the Senate agree to statehood via a simple majority vote.
• The President signs the resolution granting statehood.

So it sounds simple. The referendum in non-binding (since the power lies with the U. S. Congress, and not the Puerto Rican voters), and many observers see this as a ploy by the NPP to get support in the elections, My Puerto Rican friends are split on this subject. I have no idea how this vote will go. I do know that the current governor is all set to follow up on the results, and within 30 days. It should be interesting.

Local Elections

Someone once said all politics is local. In San Juan, that means the vote for mayor. There are five candidates running for that office:

• Miguel Romero Lugo (NPP)
• Rosanna Lopez Leon (PDP)
• Adrian Gonzalez Costa (PIP)
• Manuel Natal Albelo (Citizen Victory Movement)
• Manuel Palomo Colon (New Progressive Party).

Conclusion

So watch for the results right here. Be ready to turn off CBS, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, FOX or whatever and check back here to the results of the Puerto Rican elections.

Notes and Sources:

The quotes are all from the San Juan Star edition of November 2, 2020. The photos are all mine.