New Progressive Party (Puerto Rico)

For other uses, see New Progressive Party (disambiguation).

File:PNP.logo.gif

PNP logo with motto ("Statehood, Security, Progress")

The New Progressive Party of Puerto Rico (Spanish: Partido Nuevo Progresista de Puerto Rico, NPP) is a political party that campaigns for Puerto Rican statehood. It currently controls the Puerto Rican House of Representatives and Senate, Puerto Rico's sole non-voting seat in Congress, as well as 42 of Puerto Rico's 78 mayoral seats, 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 NPP ideology are called penepés or estadistas ("statehooders"). Individuals from the NPP may have alliances with either the national Republican Party or the Democratic Party, unlike the Popular Democratic Party, or PDP, which has strong identification with the Democratic Party. In its beginning, the majority of the NPP leaders were also members of the Republican Party, yet the last two elected NPP governors, Carlos Romero Barceló, and Dr. Pedro J. Rosselló, are registered Democrats. The Resident Commissioner, Hon. Luis G. Fortuño on the other hand, caucuses with the Republicans. House Speaker José Aponte is a Republican while Senate President Kenneth McClintock is Puerto Rico's Democratic National Committeeman.

History

Foundation

The party traces its beginnings to a 1967 assembly in a sports complex in Country Club, 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 A. García Méndez. The party campaigned unsuccessfully in favor of statehood in the Puerto Rico status referendum of 1967. Party founder and former Statehood Republican Party standard-bearer Luis A. Ferré defined the New Progressive Party that would not be aligned to any of the two national parties.

1960s

Under Luis A. Ferré, the NPP came to power in November 1968 by defeating Luis Negrón López, the chosen candidate of the PDP. Smaller vote totals were obtained by the Partido del Sol led by Roberto Sánchez 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.

1970s

Four years later, in 1972, Ferré lost to the reunified PDP's candidate Rafael Hernández Colón by the biggest percentual margin since the NPP's creation (7.3%), but in 1976, under the leadership of Carlos Romero Barceló, the NPP returned to power. Romero Barceló would face Hernández Colón three times for the seat of Puerto Rican governor.

1980s

Carlos A. Romero Barceló won the governor's seat in 1980 by a narrow 3,000 vote margin. A prominent event during his term was a controversy wherein two young men, who had gone to Cerro Maravilla, a communications facility for the Island, to intercept the transmission, were shot dead (also see: Alejandro González Malavé) by state police. 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 PDP, 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 NPP candidate, Baltasar Corrada del Río, the former resident commissioner, ran for governor but lost to Hernández Colón.

1990s

The NPP came back to power in 1992, when Pedro J. Rosselló, a pediatric surgeon, became governor by defeating Luis Muñoz Marín's daughter Victoria Muñoz Mendoza, 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 Puerto Rico National Guard was used to assist state police. During Pedro J. Rosselló'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 health care for the poor.

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. 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. Nevertheless, 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. Rosselló 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, Rosselló, 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 led to a general strike organized by labor unions and backed by opposition forces. Rosselló's popularity took a hit along with the NPP's due to the backlash of the many images of protesters.

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 Rosselló, ran for governor. Pre-election polls had him at a considerable advantage over his PDP opponent, Sila María Calderón. As the election grew closer, Calderón closed the gap as Pesquera's image was harmed by a PDP campaign focusing on corruption under Rosselló's tenure.

It also did not help Pesquera that the Acting US District Attorney Guillermo Gil said in June of 2000 (three 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 Rosselló'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, which was proven to be true in court.

In this environment, the NPP lost the 2000 election, losing the Governor's seat, the Resident Commissioner, and the state legislature. This was the first election since its creation, that the NPP suffered a vote reduction. Leo Díaz assumed the NPP Presidency, but it was short-lived as Pesquera returned to occupy the position after defeating Díaz.

Turmoil consumed the NPP 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 appropriating millions of federal funds directed to the Education Department. The former House Speaker and Republican National Committee Man, Edison Misla Aldarondo was also charged with extortion by the US Attorney's Office, and was forced to resign. 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. None of several NPP members convicted on corruption charges has ever been expelled from the party.

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. A jury acquitted Pesquera and other followers of any wrongdoing.

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 NPP 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 media outlets. In pre-election polls, Rosselló led by double digits, but ultimately Rosselló lost by some 3,000 votes (1,200 votes went as write-in for Carlos Pesquera) proving that the PDP's strategy worked once again. Rosselló challenged the electoral results alleging that split ticket votes, which had always been counted before, were now illegal. 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, a stance respected by the PDP minority senators and 5 other NPP senators. This led to the expulsion from the party of McClintock as well as two of the NPP senators who backed him, a matter which led McClintock to successfully file suit in San Juan Superior Court. The NPP has been torn by infighting since. On March 7, Rosselló stated that he was no longer interested in the Senate Presidency and is now focusing his attention in preventing Resident Commissioner Luis Fortuño from winning the March 2008 gubernatorial primary, and has allowed his name to be placed in nomination for the party's gubernatorial primary. McClintock and four other senators won in San Juan Superior Court a suit to nullify the sanctions and expulsions that the party leadership has levied against them. The Puerto Rico Supreme Court confirmed the lower court decision by a 5-to-1 vote. As a result, McClintock and his supporters are recognized as NPP members and free to run under the party banner, although the Senate President announced on May 18 that he would not run for office in the 2008 elections. To this day the N.P.P. has been plagued by several ex government officials who have been convicted of corruption charges under its past administration.It remains to be seen if the party will be able to move past the discord to mount an effective campaign for 2008.

On June 18, Resident Commissioner Luis Fortuño filed his candidacy for Governor, thus assuring a primary for that post on March 9, 2008, scarcely less than 8 months before the 2008 general election.

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 NPP "La Palma".

Curiously enough, the use of a palm tree as a party symbol by the NPP 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 native 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.

Proposed 51-star US Flag used by the New Progressive Party of Puerto Rico in the event of Puerto Rican statehood.

Disfranchisement due to Residence in Puerto Rico

U.S. Citizens residing in Puerto Rico do not have the right to vote in any U.S. legislative and executive election at the national level (despite the fact that the U.S. Government Executive and Legislative Branches hold ultimate sovereignty over all U.S. Citizens and the territory of Puerto Rico). Both the Puerto Rican Independence Party and the NPP outright reject the status quo that permits disfranchisement (from their distinct respective positions on the ideal enfranchised status for the island-nation of Puerto Rico). The remaining political organization, the Popular Democratic Party, is less active in its opposition of this case of disfranchisement but has officially stated that it favors fixing the remaining "deficits of democracy" that the Clinton Administration and Bush Administration have publicly recognized in writing through the published President’s Task Force on Puerto Rico’s Status and the public hearings held by the U.S. House of Representatives on the Puerto Rico Democracy Act of 2007.

Important party leaders

• José Aponte (Speaker of the Puerto Rico House of Representatives)
• Baltasar Corrada del Rio (former Resident Commissioner to Congress, 1988 gubernatorial nominee)
• Luis A. Ferré (1904-2003) (former Governor of Puerto Rico)
• Luis Fortuño (current Resident Commissioner who aspires to the Governorship)
• Kenneth McClintock (President of the Puerto Rico Senate)
• Carlos Mendez Martinez (currrent Mayor of Aguadilla and GOP State Chair)
• Héctor O'Neill García (Mayor of Guaynabo)
• Carlos Pesquera (former Secretary of Transportation and 2000 gubernatorial nominee)
• Pedro Pierluisi (former Puerto Rico Attorney General)
• Dr. Pedro J. Rosselló González (former Governor of Puerto Rico, aspires again)
• Ramón Luis Rivera (former Mayor of Bayamon)
• Ramón Luis Rivera, Jr. (current Mayor of Bayamon)
• Thomas Rivera Schatz (NPP Electoral Commissioner and Secretary General)
• Carlos Romero Barceló (former Governor and Resident Commissioner)
• Jorge Santini (Mayor of the Capital-City of San Juan)

See also

• List of political parties in Puerto Rico
• Politics of Puerto Rico

References

http://www.endi.com/noticia/portada/noticias/triunfan_los_disidentes/230159

External links

• Partido Nuevo Progresista