New Progressive Party of Puerto Rico
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- This article is about the political party in Puerto Rico. For other political parties with similar names, see Progressive Party.
The New Progressive Party of Puerto Rico (Spanish: Partido Nuevo Progresista de Puerto Rico, PNP) is a political party that campaigns for Puerto Rican statehood. It currently controls the Puerto Rican House of Representatives and Senate, while the governor of Puerto Rico, Aníbal Acevedo Vilá, is the leader of the opposition Popular Democratic Party of Puerto Rico.
Those who follow the PNP ideology are called penepés or estadistas ("statehooders"). Individuals from the PNP may have alliances with either the national Republican Party or the Democratic Party, unlike the Popular Democratic Party, which has strong identification with the Democratic Party. In its beginning, the majority of the PNP leaders were also members of the Republican Party, yet the last two elected PNP governors, Carlos Romero-Barceló, and Dr. Pedro Rosselló, are registered Democrats.
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[edit] History
[edit] Foundation
The party traces its beginnings to a 1967 reunion in a sports complex in Carolina. On January 5, 1968, the party was certified as an official political group by the State Elections Commission of Puerto Rico. The party had roots in a prior pro-statehood party led by Miguel Angel Garcia Mendez. Part of the impetus congealed after the unsuccessful campaign in the Puerto Rico status referendum of 1967. Party founder and former Statehood Republican Party standard-bearer Luis A. Ferre defined the New Progressive Party that would not be aligned to any of the two national parties.
[edit] 1960s
Under Luis A. Ferré, the PNP came to power in November 1968 by defeating Luis Negron Lopez, the chosen candidate of the PPD. Smaller vote totals were obtained by the Partido del Sol led by Roberto Sanchez Vilella and the candidate from the PIP. The governing party was saddled by the break-away candidacy of then-governor Vilella, who had feuded with the PPD leader, Luis Muñoz Marín.
[edit] 1970s
Four years later, in 1972, Ferré lost to the reunified PPD's candidate Rafael Hernández Colón, but in 1976, under the leadership of Carlos Romero Barcelo, the PNP returned to power. Romero Barcelo would face Hernandez Colon two times for the seat of Puerto Rican governor.
[edit] 1980s
Romero Barcelo won in 1980 by a narrow 3,000 vote margin due to a computer glitch. A prominent event during his term was a controversy wherein two young men, who had gone to Cerro Maravilla, a communications facilty for the island, to blow it up, were shot dead (also see: Alejandro González Malave). At first, it was reported that they had been shot because they resisted arrest, but then it became clear that they had been shot execution style while under police custody. The opposition PPD, in control of the legislature, orchestrated televised hearings in which they attempted to prove the whole incident was planned by the administration of Gov. Romero-Barceló. Further scandals erupted when it became possible that an undercover police agent that was with the two men had actually engineered the whole episode. This, combined with the fact that the then-mayor of San Juan, Hernán Padilla, left the party to form his own party, Partido Renovación Puertorriqueña (or PRP), allowed Hernández Colón to obtain re-election in 1984. In 1988, the PNP candidate, Baltazar Corrada del Río, the former resident commissioner, ran for governor but lost to Hernández Colón.
[edit] 1990s
The NPP came back to power in 1992, when Pedro Rosselló, a pediatric surgeon, became governor by defeating Luis Muñoz Marín's daughter Victoria Melo Muñoz, the PDP candidate, to become governor.
While governor, Rosselló launched an anti-crime campaign known as "Mano Dura Contra el Crimen" ("Strong hand against crime") in which the Commando-style Puerto Rico National Guard was used to assist state police. During Pedro Rossello's term a number of large-scale infrastructure projects were undertaken, including the "Tren Urbano" (Metro Rail System), the "Superaqueduct", and the "Coliseo Puerto Rico" (Puerto Rico Coliseum). His policies also included a push toward privatization of public entities and free healthcare for the poor completely paid by the middle class of Puerto Rico.
He led the NPP in two campaigns for Puerto Rican statehood in 1993 and 1998 in which locally-enacted plebiscites were held to consult the Puerto Rican public on the political status with the United States but was brutally defeated both times. He supported the proposal for a referendum in Puerto Rico to define the political status of the island. However, the bill died in committee in the Senate of the United States. Nevetherless, Rosselló carried out a non-binding plebiscite in 1998 which gave electors four options and a fifth None of the Above column. The opposing Popular Democratic Party led a campaign to boycott the plebiscite and called the electorate to vote for the None of the Above column. The boycott was successful, as the None of the Above column garnered more votes than all of the other options. Rossello argued before Congress that statehood had won the plebiscite as he later said that the Fifth column was an invalid vote.
In the 1996 elections, the NPP candidate, Rossello, defeated opponent Héctor Luis Acevedo (PDP), Mayor of San Juan at the time, and Representative David Noriega (PIP), for a second term after obtaining more than one million votes and the largest victory margin of any candidate since 1964.
In 1998, the sale of the state-owned Puerto Rico Telephone Company (PRTC) to GTE for $1.9 Billion dollars led to a general strike organized by labor unions and backed by opposition forces. Rossello's popularity took a hit along with the NPP's due to the backlash, as well as the many images of bloodied protesters assaulted by the Police.
[edit] 2000s
Rosselló stepped down as governor after eight years in power in 2000. His period as governor was marked by the Vieques protests and major economic growth due to the coincidence of the emerging Internet. In 2000, Carlos I. Pesquera, Secretary of Transportation under Rossello, ran for governor. Pre-election polls had him at a considerable advantage over his PDP opponent, Sila María Calderón. As the election grew closer, Calderon closed the gap as Pesquera's image was harmed by a PDP campaign focusing on corruption under Rossello's tenure.
It also did not help Pesquera that the Acting US District Attorney Guillermo Gil said in June of 2000 (3 months before the November 2000 election) "corruption has a name and it is called the New Progressive Party" while announcing a grand jury indictment. The grand jury had accused 18 people - including two mayors from Rossello´s New Progressive Party - of running an extortion scheme that skimmed $800,000 in kickbacks from a $56 million government contract. During a news conference, Gil told journalists that the extorted money had ended up in the coffers of the New Progressive Party. In a letter to Attorney General Janet Reno, Rossello accused Attorney Guillermo Gil of making an ``unfounded and inflammatory´´ connection to the NPP. Rossello also said Gil´s comment could affect his party in the upcoming 2000 elections. Gil had seemingly made it his personal mission to aggressively prosecute members of the NPP.
In this environment, the NPP lost the 2000 election, losing the Governor's seat, the Resident Commissioner, and legislature. This was the first election since its creation, that the NPP suffered a vote reduction. Leo Diaz assumed the NPP Presidency, but it was short-lived as Pesquera returned to occupy the position after defeating Diaz.
Turmoil consumed the PNP during the first two years of the 2001-2005 term. The Secretary of Education, under the Rossello's administration, Victor Fajardo, was charged and convicted by federal agencies of appropiating millions of federal funds directed to the Education Department.[1] The former House Speaker and Republica National Committee Man, Edison Misla Aldarondo was also charged with extorsion by the US Attorney's Office, and was forced to resign.[2] In an ironic turn of events, NPP figures charged with federal corruption crimes were also charged with corruption by the Puerto Rico Justice Department using new anti-corruption state laws that the NPP had enacted. In 2001, Calderon named a Blue Ribbon Committee that was dedicated to investigate government transactions under Rossello's two terms. The controversial committee was criticized by the comptroller and the NPP for revealing details of probes and names of individuals who allegedly committed wrongdoings that may be interpreted as criminal violations and it was proven that this committee was nothing more than a Political Persecution front of the PDP.
In July 2002, several of the party's leaders were involved in an incident at the Office of Women's Affairs. Pesquera led a phalanx of pro-statehood advocates and the press into the government office whose administrator had refused to display the American Flag alongside the flag of Puerto Rico.
In March 2003, Rosselló, who had been living in the state of Virginia, returned to the island, responding to the many calls and visits he received from prominent citizens and politicians. Rosselló subsequently defeated Pesquera in the PNP primary for the gubernatorial nomination.
The fall 2004 campaign was lively and controversial. Rosselló's prior administration was repeatedly painted as corrupt, while his PDP opponent (Calderón chose not to run for re-election) Anibal Acevedo Vila (PDP) was initially behind in the polls. In his performance in televised debates, Acevedo's campaign gained momentum, aided in part by the favorable press he received from the island's PDP-sympathizing major media outlets. In pre-election polls, Rosselló led by double digits, but ultimately Rosselló lost by some 3,000 votes (12,000 votes went as write-in for Carlos Pesquera) proving that the PDP's strategy worked once again. Rosselló challenged the electoral results after it became clear that about 6,000 votes, with multiple markings, had been counted for his opponent. After a lengthy court battle decided by the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit (located in Boston, MA), Acevedo Vila was certified as governor.
As 2005 began, Rosselló became a Senator for the Arecibo district after elected Senator Victor Loubriel resigned from his seat, effectively gaining a seat for which he did not run. Thus started a struggle between Senate President Kenneth McClintock and Rossello for control of the Senate Presidency . The dispute ended in a stalemate as McClintock refused to leave the position, forming an alliance with the PDP minority senators and 4 other NPP senators to keep Rosselló from becoming Senate President. This led to the expulsion of McClintock as well as two of the rougue senators, from the NPP. The NPP has been torn by infighting since. It remains to be seen if the party will be able to move past the discord to mount an effective campaign for 2008.
[edit] Party logo
The party is strongly associated with the color blue in Puerto Rico because of its logo. Since the logo features a palm tree, many Puerto Ricans call the PNP "La Palma", pretty much as the Republican Party of the United States is called the "Grand Old Party", or "GOP".
Curiously enough, the use of a palm tree as a party symbol by the PNP was suggested, indirectly, by the opposition. In the original 1967 status plebiscite, then Puerto Rico governor Roberto Sanchez Vilella asked one of his then staff members, future governor Rafael Hernandez Colon to come up with three ideas for art clips, as to identify each of the three status options in the ballot and assist illiterate voters who might not be able to read it. In his book "Vientos de Cambio", Hernandez Colón recalls that he conceived the three symbols while at the backyard of his father-in-law's house in Ponce, Puerto Rico. One of the symbols (the one which eventually represented the statehood option in the ballot) was a "palma real" (Roystonea regia), a species of palm tree that is autochthonous to the Caribbean. The group "Estadistas Unidos", the statehood supporters who broke rank with García Méndez to participate at the plebiscite, adopted the palm tree as a potential party symbol when they incorporated the NPP. Due to electoral law restrictions, however, they were forbidden to use a "palma real" as a logo because of its previous use in an election; therefore, a coconut (Cocos nucifera) palm tree was used instead. The use of the coconut palm tree as a symbol by the NPP persists to this day.
The logo's original version consisted of a light blue palm tree, partially encircled by words in a semi-circle (the exact color hue for the logo being that of the United Nations flag, as a personal request from the party founder, Luis A. Ferré. The original logo had the party's name surrounding it; eventually the words "estadidad, seguridad, progreso" ("statehood, security, progress" in English) substituted the party name. The logo later enclosed the palm tree in a blue oval and reversed its colors. The tonality of blue used in the newer logo was eventually changed to a deep navy blue, as to liken it to that of the canton of the United States' flag.
[edit] Important party leaders
- Luis Fortuno
- Carlos I. Pesquera
- Carlos Romero Barcelo
- Hector O'Neill
- Luis A. Ferré
- Pedro Rosselló
- Ramon Luis Rivera
[edit] Notes
- ^ Puerto Rico Herald January 24, 2002 (accessed 3 November 2006)
- ^ Puerto Rico Herald January 8, 2002 (accessed 3 November 2006)
[edit] See also
| Political Parties in Puerto Rico | |
| Major Parties | Puerto Rican Independence Party | Popular Democratic Party | New Progressive Party |
|---|---|
| Minor Parties | Movimiento Socialista de Trabajadores | Socialist Front | Hostosian National Independence Movement |
