By The Star Staff
Pablo José Hernández Rivera, who is on track to become Puerto Rico’s next resident commissioner in the United States Congress, on Wednesday rejected the idea of presiding over the Popular Democratic Party (PDP) and said political status is not an issue.
He also denied that the PDP is at a critical juncture after the result of Tuesday’s elections.
“I have heard a lot of analysis that the Popular Democratic Party is in a critical moment,” Hernández Rivera said in a press conference. “... And the fact is that although we had the undesirable result that we had in the governorship, we also made history in other ways. We won more mayorships than last time and as for the victory of the resident commissioner, if the current numbers hold, it is the widest margin of victory by a Popular Democratic Party candidate on the state ballot since 1964.”
“[Tuesday’s] result on the state ballot, although we regret it very much for the governorship, for the commissionership it is a result that we have not seen since Luis Muñoz Marín was on the Popular Party ballot,” he added. “And with that context and within those circumstances, my message to the ‘populares’ is, there is a future.”
At around 2 p.m. Wednesday, according to the latest available vote count numbers from the State Elections Commission, Hernández Rivera had a comfortable lead in the resident commissioner contest, with 44.55% of the vote (472,292 votes). William Villafañe Ramos of the New Progressive Party was at 35.05% (371,470 votes), Ana Irma Rivera Lassén of the Citizen Victory Movement-Puerto Rican Independence Party Alliance was at 10% (106,025 votes), Roberto Karlo Velazquez Correa of the Puerto Rico Independence Party had 5.23% (55,383 votes), and Viviana Ramírez Morales of the Dignity Project stood at 5.20% with 55,088 votes.
Hernández Rivera insisted that for the moment he has no interest in presiding over the Popular Democratic Party to seek an office in 2028.
“I was elected by the people to be their resident commissioner, not to begin campaigning for an election four years from now,” he said. “Regarding the presidency of the PDP, I believe that the party has a president and that president must be given space to make the decisions he wants to make about his political future. I will not exert any pressure regarding the presidency of the PDP. I think we have plenty of time to discuss that in the coming weeks.”
On the issue of status and the governor-elect’s claim on statehood, Hernández Rivera reiterated that it is not his priority.
“As I said throughout the campaign, I do not recognize the validity of that [Tuesday’s status] plebiscite because it is not binding and because it did not include the option of maintaining and improving the Free Associated State,” he said. “In addition to that, I believe that the results of the plebiscite reflect a setback for statehood because when you add the votes for independence, the Free Association and the blank and void votes, which were the votes that the PDP asked for, statehood drops from the 52% it obtained in 2020 to 47 or 48%, meaning that it no longer has a majority.”
“In addition to that, I have seen statements made today by Mitch McConnell, who is the outgoing leader of the Republican [Senate] minority, because I understand that they are going to elect a new majority leader, but with the Republicans controlling Congress, he said that one of the things they are going to do is that they are not going to admit new states that could affect the partisan balance, which makes it more than clear that they are not going to approve anything that could make statehood viable for Puerto Rico, so I believe that we should leave that issue aside and focus on the country’s true priorities, which are its economic development, the parity of federal programs, and the reconstruction of the [electric power] network,” Hernández Rivera said. “Emphasizing that with Donald Trump’s victory and the Republicans’ victory in the Senate, we still don’t know what will happen in the House, parity in federal programs becomes even more difficult and complicated, that party being fiscally conservative and adverse to that type of programs, but in that sense we hope to count on the [resident] commissioner [apparent governor-elect Jenniffer González Colón], who is a Republican, who is the person, the highest-ranking Republican in Puerto Rico, to help us in those efforts. And she knows, and I reiterate, that she can count on my absolute collaboration in economic development measures and parity in federal programs for Puerto Rico.”
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