It’s complicated: Puerto Ricans vote on knotty US relationship

SAN JUAN: To become a true US state, to choose independence or to maintain the status quo: Puerto Ricans will on Sunday mull their political future in a non-binding referendum many have vowed to boycott.

The Spanish- speaking US territory’s referendum proposes “the immediate decoloniSation of Puerto Rico” – just as the bankrupt island is drowning in US$ 70 billion in debt.

Its young governor, Ricardo Rossello, said that regardless of the crisis the referendum could not wait, repeating over the past several days in interviews and on Twitter that “the moment to vote for the decoloniSation has arrived!”

Rossello, 38, came to power in January on the promise that he would work to end a long “colonial” relationship with the United States and make the island the 51st state.

The question of status is “fundamental” to breaking free from economic turmoil, said Christian Sobrino, chief economic advisor to the government.

“It is because Puerto Rico is in an unequal relationship” with the US government that the bankrupt island’s finances are now under a largely US- appointed control board, he told AFP.

A former Spanish colony taken over by the US at the end of the 19th century, Puerto Rico has enjoyed broad political autonomy since 1952 as a commonwealth or “free associated state”.

As American citizens, often proudly so, Puerto Ricans can freely enter the US – but don’t have the right to vote for US presidents or elect representatives to Congress, even though US lawmakers have the ultimate say over the territory’s affairs.

Many Puerto Ricans attribute the malaise plaguing the island to Washington’s power over them.

For decades the territory enjoyed a US federal tax exemption that attracted many American companies to set up shop – but those breaks were ended in 2006, prompting firms to leave the island en masse.

Beaten down by that loss in revenues and the global financial crisis, the island plunged into recession.

But the so- called “Caribbean Greece” found easy relief in US municipal bond markets, where investors could get attractive taxexempt bonds that provided ready cash but sank the island deeper into debt.

The bubble ultimately popped and, unable to repay creditors, Puerto Rico declared bankruptcy in early May – the largest ever by a local US government.

Rossello has launched a drastic austerity regime to restore finances, but Washington still has the last word, via its oversight board.

Many islanders see the US authority as an intolerable stranglehold, especially considering that President Donald Trump has several times argued against bailing out the distant territory.

And putting on a largely ceremonial yet costly referendum – the fifth since the 1960s – when the government’s coffers sit empty has those opposed to statehood up in arms. — AFP