Puerto Rico prepares for Election Day as a third-party candidate makes history

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — The two parties that have dominated Puerto Rican politics for decades are losing their grip as they face the stiffest competition yet from a younger generation fed up with the island's corruption, chronic power outages and mismanagement of public funds.

For the first time in the island's governor's race, a third-party candidate has a powerful second lead in the polls ahead of the U.S. territory's election Tuesday — and some experts say there’s a possibility he could win.

“This election is already historic,” said political analyst and university professor Jorge Schmidt Nieto. “It already marks a before and an after.”

Juan Dalmau is running for Puerto Rico's Independence Party and the Citizen Victory Movement, established in 2019. A Gaither international poll this month shows Dalmau closing in on Jenniffer González, a member of the New Progressive Party and Puerto Rico's representative in Congress. She beat Gov. Pedro Pierluisi in their party's primary in June.

Gaither’s poll shows Dalmau with 29% of support versus González’s 31% as he nearly caught up with her since a different poll in July showed him with only 24% compared with González’s 43%. Coming in third was Jesús Manuel Ortiz, of the Popular Democratic Party, followed by Javier Jiménez of Project Dignity, a conservative party created in 2019.

Under pressure

Puerto Rican politics revolve around the island's status, and up until 2016, the New Progressive Party, which supports statehood, and the Popular Democratic Party, which supports the status quo, would split at least 90% of all votes during general elections, Schmidt said.

But that year, U.S. Congress created a federal control board to oversee Puerto Rico's finances after the government announced it was unable to pay a more than $70 billion public debt load. In 2017, Puerto Rico filed for the biggest U.S. municipal bankruptcy in history.

The debt was accrued through decades of corruption, mismanagement and excessive borrowing, with Puerto Rico's Electric Power Authority still struggling to restructure its more than $9 billion debt, the largest of any government agency.

Puerto Ricans have largely rejected and resented the board, created a year before Hurricane Maria slammed into the island as a powerful Category 4 storm, razing the electrical grid.

In 2020, Pierluisi won but received only 33% of votes. His opponent from the Popular Democratic Party received 32%. It marked the first time either party failed to reach 40% of votes.

The power outages that have persisted since the elections, coupled with the slow pace of hurricane reconstruction, have frustrated and angered voters. Under Pierluisi, the government signed contracts with two companies, Luma Energy and Genera PR, which together oversee the generation, transmission and distribution of power. Outages have persisted, with the companies blaming a grid that was already crumbling before the hurricane hit due to a lack of maintenance and investment.

“Disastrous things have occurred during this four-year term, especially with the electric energy,” Schmidt said. “It has affected everyone, regardless of social class.”

Voters, he said, are viewing Tuesday’s elections “as a moment of revenge.”

Dalmau said he would oust both companies in an “organized fashion” within six months if he becomes governor. Ortiz said he would cancel Luma’s contract, while González has called for the creation of an “energy czar” that would review potential Luma contractual breaches while another operator is found.

However, no contract can be canceled without prior approval of the federal control board and Puerto Rico’s Energy Bureau.

The candidates also are under pressure to create affordable housing, lower power bills and the general cost of living, reduce violent crimes, boost Puerto Rico’s economy, with the island locked out of capital markets since 2015, and improve a crumbling health care system as thousands of doctors flock to the U.S. mainland.

Dalmau, who suspended his campaign for two weeks in mid-October after his wife had emergency brain surgery, also has said he would eliminate tax breaks for wealthy U.S. citizens from the mainland.

Apathy dominates

Despite their promises to turn Puerto Rico around, candidates face persistent voter apathy.

In 2008, 1.9 million out of 2.5 million registered voters participated in that year’s election, compared with 1.3 million out of 2.3 million in 2020.

This year, nearly 99,000 new voters registered and more than 87,000 reactivated their status, according to Puerto Rico’s State Elections Commission.

“A much higher number was expected,” Schmidt said.

He noted that those middle age and older favor González and her pro-statehood party, while those younger than 45 “overwhelmingly” favor Dalmau, which means that if a majority of young voters participate on Tuesday and fewer older ones do so, he might have a chance of winning.

The Bad Bunny factor

The months leading up to the Nov. 5 elections have been contentious.

Reggaetón superstar Bad Bunny paid for dozens of billboard ads criticizing Puerto Rico’s two main parties. In response, the governor’s New Progressive Party financed a billboard ad suggesting an obscenity in reference to Bad Bunny.

On Friday, the singer published a page-long letter in a local newspaper deriding González's pro-statehood party.

While the artist has not endorsed any local officials, the sole person he recently began following on Instagram was Dalmau.

Meanwhile, a so-called “cemetery of corruption” was set up Thursday in the capital, San Juan, featuring large black-and-white pictures of nearly a dozen politicians from the island’s two main parties who have been charged or sentenced by federal authorities in recent years. It was created by Eva Prados with the Citizen Victory Movement, who is running for Puerto Rico's House. By Friday, police reported that the pictures were destroyed or stolen.

As the race heats up, the number of formal complaints about alleged electoral crimes also has increased. These include people who say they received confirmations for early voting when they made no such request.

A persistent question

Voters on Tuesday also will be asked for a seventh time what Puerto Rico’s political status should be.

The nonbinding referendum will feature three choices: statehood, independence and independence with free association, under which issues like foreign affairs, U.S. citizenship and use of the U.S. dollar would be negotiated.

Regardless of the outcome, a change in status requires approval from the U.S. Congress.

“For a lot of people, it’s a demoralizing exercise to vote in a non-binding referendum,” said Christina Ponsa-Kraus, a professor at Columbia Law School. “The reason Puerto Ricans have voted seven times is that every time they vote, Congress doesn’t do anything.”

The push for a change in status doesn't depend on whether Kamala Harris or Donald Trump win in the U.S. mainland.

“The stakes are more than just who becomes president, but who is in control of Congress,” Ponsa-Kraus said as she called on Congress to offer Puerto Rico “non-colonial options.”

She added that it’s hard to say whether the gubernatorial run by Dalmau, who has long represented Puerto Rico’s Independence Party, would affect the plebiscite vote.

“My sense is that … people can distinguish between a candidate and a status option,” she said. “I believe that Puerto Ricans have historically not supported independence because they do not want to lose their citizenship, and they do not want to lose the ability to move back and forth freely between the mainland United States and the island.”

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