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Puerto Rico - Politics

Puerto Rican politics in the 19th century manifested two trends of thought : From 1808 to 1823, the liberals advocated the assimilation of Puerto Rico as a juridical equal of the peninsular provinces; beginning in 1823, a radical shift in liberal thought put emphasis on an autonomous system of government rather than on the process of assimilation. Thus began a protracted campaign for political autonomy, waged both on the island and on the peninsula, which culminated in the granting of a Charter of Autonomy for Puerto Rico in 1897. The last two decades of the nineteenth century were a time of intense political ferment in Puerto Rico.

On July 25, 1898, the United States invaded Puerto Rico as part of an American strategy to capture Spanish holdings in the Caribbean to keep them out of the hands of the Germans. The Spanish Army put up little resistance to the invasion, and some rural peasants even formed mobile bands to resist their former colonizers. Two future Resident Commissioners watched the assault from different perspectives. As a leader in the Autonomist Party and having recently won home rule for Puerto Rico from the Spanish government, Luis Muñoz Rivera watched the invasion with dismay. His political rival, Santiago Iglesias, whom Muñoz Rivera had imprisoned for his labor agitation at the outbreak of the war, nearly died when an American shell struck the prison. Upon his release, he aided the American invaders by serving as an interpreter.

Hostilities ended August 12, 1898, and the United States installed a military government in Puerto Rico on October 18. The Treaty of Paris, which was signed December 10, 1898, ended the war, with Spain ceding Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines to the United States. Among those present at the treaty’s signing in France was future Resident Commissioner Federico Degetau.

Puerto Rican politics differed from those of the other islands in the Spanish Caribbean and from those of other U.S. territories. Unlike Cuba and the Dominican Republic — which were characterized by revolutionary militarism and authoritarianism, respectively — Puerto Rico followed a tradition of working within the existing colonial system to liberalize civil government on the island. By the time the United States acquired Puerto Rico at the end of the Spanish-American War the island’s political elite, who would shape the first generation of relations with the United States, already had a long history of working within a colonial framework. By 1869 the Spanish Cortes in Madrid had seated the first Puerto Rican delegates. Over time Puerto Rican businessmen and politicians became inclined to favor “electoral and parliamentary solutions to its colonial dilemma,” thus reinforcing “a defining characteristic of the island’s political culture,” relative economic stability with rigid class lines.

Autonomists, who sought self-rule within the Spanish imperial orbit, dominated island politics by the 1880s. They formed Liberal and Conservative factions that often reflected the platforms of major parties in Madrid. Moreover, they constantly advanced their case for ever-greater measures of home rule by contrasting the island’s record as a faithful outpost of the empire with Cuba’s insurrectionist movement. For instance, the Autonomist faction, led by Luis Muñoz Rivera, contributed “loyalty and support for the Liberal Party in the Spanish Cortes in exchange for concessions of enhanced self-rule.” Muñoz Rivera declared to Spanish officials, “We are Spaniards and wrapped in the Spanish flag we shall die.” He and future Resident Commissioner Federico Degetau were among those who traveled to Madrid in 1895 to secure home rule for Puerto Rico from the Spanish government.

The United States’ victory in the Spanish-American War moved Puerto Rico’s trajectory away from self-rule, frustrating and traumatizing Puerto Rico’s political elites “to the extent that more than a century later, those wounds continued to ooze with no end in sight.”28 Instead of political autonomy, which Spain had promised, the United States implemented two years of military rule under three different governors: Major John Brooke, General Guy Henry, and General George W. Davis — all of whom had backgrounds as Indian fighters, leaving Puerto Ricans dismayed at the unlikelihood of their political recognition. After the United States occupied the island in 1898, Muñoz Rivera wrote a poem likening his efforts to achieve political autonomy for Puerto Rico to Sisyphus’s eternal task of pushing a huge rock up a hill, only to have it roll back down.

Pivoting on the issues of autonomy, statehood, and independence, Puerto Rican political parties underwent a number of transformations in the early 20th century. One scholar describes the insular political scene of the 1920s as a “kaleidoscope” with the “disappearance of some parties, the birth of new ones, and the merger of others” and as a jumble of “personality clashes, factions within parties, and changing political credos.” Adding another layer of complexity, these developments always “operated within the framework of United States control.” Félix Córdova Dávila discussed Puerto Ricans’ quandary: testifying before the House Committee on Insular Affairs during the 70th Congress (1927–1929), “This uncertainty [in status] brings as a result a divided public opinion; some of the people advocating independence, others statehood, and others full self-government,” he told his colleagues. “We are not to be blamed for the different views that are striking our minds. It is not our fault. If there is any fault at all, it belongs exclusively to the doubtful position we are left in through the failure of the American Congress to define our status.” Continuing, Córdova Dávila delineated Puerto Rico’s identity crisis:

"Are we foreigners? No; because we are American citizens, and no citizen of the United States can be a foreigner within the boundaries of the Nation. Are we a part of the Union? No; because we are an unincorporated Territory under the rulings of the Supreme Court. Can you find a proper definition for this organized and yet unincorporated Territory, for this piece of ground belonging to but not forming part of the United States? Under the rulings of the courts of justice we are neither flesh, fish, nor fowl. We are neither a part nor a whole. We are nothing; and it seems to me if we are not allowed to be part of the Union we should be allowed to be a whole entity with full and complete control of our internal affairs."

Shifting American policy had a direct influence on the confusing political alliances in Puerto Rico. “The political situation here is more complex and scrambled than it has been for many years,” wrote Harwood Hull in the New York Times in 1932, a year that saw at least three party transitions. “Party lines have been broken and re-formed in recent months.”

Puerto Ricans went to the polls this 08 November 2016 to hold their general elections in the hope that their new leader will provide a solution to the severe social and economic crisis. In 2015, almost 90,000 people emigrated to a population of only 3.5 million inhabitants. Puerto Rico reached its lowest point in June when the US Congress approved the imposition of a Fiscal Control Board, with plenary powers, which took control of the island's public finances. The Congress in Washington approved the Promise Law that establishes an entity that overlaps the Government and the Legislative of the Island for any decision of the economic area, in exchange, among other measures, of temporarily "freezing" the payment to the creditors of Puerto Rico , Which carries a debt of more than 70 billion dollars. A debt contracted by the mismanagement of several decades and the excessive taking of loans in the bond markets.

Citizens could choose between New Progressive Party (PNP) candidate Ricardo Rossello, David Bernier of the Popular Democratic Party (PDP), Maria de Lourdes Santiago candidate for the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP), Rafael Bernabe of the Partido del Pueblo Trabajador PPT) and the independent candidates Alexandra Lúgaro and Manuel Cidre.

1. Alexandra Lúgaro: The first woman as an independent candidate for governor. The licensee and atheist does not hide her contractual relationship with the government of Puerto Rico, in order to face the bipartisanism that has predominated in the country, which she catalogs as the root of the current economic crisis.
2. Manuel Cidre: The entrepreneur, independent candidate for governor, is a native of Cuba. He has criticized the handling of the economic situation of the country and the crisis that affects the Island ("I refuse to ride Jet Blue"). He promised to be loyal to Puerto Rico and not to a political party. The postulant has let know that even if he does not win he will continue to fight for a change.
3. Maria de Lourdes Santiago: A candidate for the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP), stressed their willingness to make resistance federal fiscal control board product of the failure of the Commonwealth and the colonialist policy of the Popular Democratic Party ( PPD).
4. Rafael Bernabe: The university professor candidate for governor by the Party of the Working People (PPT) called on voters to bury bipartisanship and cast a vote that can build a new Puerto Rico. The candidate rejected the speech of not voting under the assumption that the country will be under the control of the Fiscal Supervision Board, because that "would be resigned" to that "antidemocratic" entity.
5. David Bernier: He is the figure of the party Popular Democratic Party (PPD). He says the best alternative to drive Puerto Rico forward is greater fiscal autonomy, independence from debts and internationalization of the economy. He asks the Puerto Ricans not to attribute responsibility for the efforts of the present administration and give him the vote to the general elections.
6. Ricardo Rossello: Professor and researcher, is running for governor for the New Progressive Party (PNP). He is a recognized annexationist and as his father defends the incorporation of Puerto Rico as one more state of the United States. It proposes to further limit government resource allocations, as well as establish a limited budget for essential and priority services

The six-way race for governor is dominated by two candidates from the leading political parties, Ricardo Rossello Nevares of the New Progressive Party and David Bernier of the Popular Democratic Party. The new governor took over from Alejandro Garcia Padilla, in office since 2013, for a four-year term. The candidate of the New Progressive Party (PNP), Ricardo Roselló, is the new Governor of Puerto Rico after obtaining 41.87 percent of the votes. In second place David Bernier of the People's Democratic Party (PPD), with 39.00 percent of the votes. The candidate acknowledged his defeat and telephoned Rosello with whom he exchanged "cordial words, as always." Around 2.9 million voters also selected members of the two-chamber Legislative Assembly and the mayors of the 78 municipalities in which this Caribbean island of 3.5 million people is geographically divided.