Gov. Ricardo Rosselló of Puerto Rico, under fire for weeks, agrees to step down
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló announced late Wednesday evening that he is resigning from office effective Aug. 2, buckling to the unrelenting pressure of a popular uprising of unprecedented scope that in less than two weeks has turned this long-suffering U.S. territory upside down.
Rosselló was swept from office not three years into his term by 12 days of massive protests and political upheaval triggered by a leaked, profanely insolent phone-app chat and the arrest of six current and former administration officials on corruption charges. But the recent scandals were only the bitter capper to years of mounting frustration on the part of Puerto Ricans, faced with widespread and incessant corruption, a lagging government response to a cataclysmic hurricane, and a deep economic recession with no end in sight.
In the end, after days of strident insistence that he would serve out his term, Rosselló went quietly – announcing his decision in a live stream on his administration’s Facebook page – at the end of a speech long on his government’s accomplishments.
“Despite having the support of the people who elected me democratically, I now feel that continuing in this position will make it difficult for the success achieved so far to last,” Rosselló said. “Today, I’m announcing I will be resigning from the governor position effective Friday, Aug. 2, 2019 at 5 p.m.”
The news of his resignation, expected since local media reported late Tuesday that his departure from office was imminent, set off celebrations in the capital of San Juan on Wednesday.
In Old San Juan, in front of the iconic Doña Fela parking garage not far from the governor’s mansion, a mostly young crowd of hundreds gathered around improvised speakers on top of a pickup truck broadcasting the Facebook Live feed of the voice of the man so many had pushed to overthrow through daily acts of resistance.
As Rosselló recounted some of his administration’s accomplishments, the crowd remained quiet and tense, the mounting anxiety of hours of waiting in anticipation to erupt at his hoped-for final words, when he announced he would be stepping down.
The crowd screamed, drowning out the sound of the rest of Rosselló’s message. Couples hugged and kissed. Some cried, danced, or both at the same time. A group of young people leaning over a metal railing waved Puerto Rican flags and sang.
“I was scared, I was like, ‘Wow, if he doesn’t resign, he’s not worth anything.’ I was thinking that because we had an entire people united, the artists, internationally, so we’re just so happy,” said 26-year-old Mergam Alvarado. “We’re such a great country and we deserve something that can guide us better.”
Rosselló’s post will be filled for the remainder of his four-year term by Wanda Vázquez, his secretary of justice. Under the Puerto Rican constitution, the secretary of state is first in line to succeed a governor who can’t complete a term. But the position has been vacant since the person who occupied it under Rosselló, Luis Rivera Marín, one of a dozen participants in the private Telegram app chat, resigned.
Rossello’s stubborn insistence on holding onto his office seemed only to inspire protesters’ determination to oust him. On Sunday, after meeting with leaders and elected officials of his pro-statehood New Progressive Party, Rosselló said he would not run for re-election in 2020 and quit as party head.
If he thought that would tamp down the protests, he soon found out otherwise.
The resignation came two days after hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans staged the largest demonstration in island history, marching down a major expressway to demand Rosselló’s resignation, producing stunning images that led the news across the United States.