Few have as many reasons as Puerto Ricans to be furious at the status quo, according to a Bloomberg Businessweek commentary. The quarter of the island’s 3.2 million residents who are 21 or younger have lived most of their lives in a grinding recession that forced hundreds of thousands to migrate to the mainland. The U.S. commonwealth declared bankruptcy in May 2017, its economy brought down by an addiction to borrowing that at one point created a $74 billion debt. It now operates under a congressionally mandated fiscal oversight board, which has demanded austerity. Public services were so hollowed out by budget cuts that when Hurricane Maria hit a few months after the bankruptcy filing, there was little help for citizens. Federal aid was slow to arrive and given grudgingly by President Donald Trump, an aggravating echo of the island’s colonial status. At least 3,000 died. Among the protesters’ chief demands in the weeks leading up to Rosselló’s July 24 resignation was an end to Promesa, the federal law that created the oversight board. The question of whether to remain a commonwealth, seek statehood, or try for independence has long been the defining issue for voters. Rosselló’s New Progressive Party, founded in 1967, seeks statehood and controls the governor’s mansion and both houses of the legislature. The minority Popular Democratic Party helped get Puerto Rico commonwealth status and dominated politics for three decades after its 1938 founding. The parties are alike in their ability to engender patronage, graft, and bitter, Kremlinesque internecine conflict. Cracks have begun to appear in the two main parties’ foundations. Historically, around 95 percent of voters went for one of them, but in 2016, about 1 in 5 voted for other parties’ candidates for governor.
*The views expressed in this commentary are from the author/publication cited, are meant for informative purposes only, and are not an official position of ABI.
