Puerto Ricans shut down capital

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Hundreds of thousands of people swept through the capital of Puerto Rico on Monday, shutting down a major highway and paralyzing much of the city in the latest in a series of protests over the island’s embattled governor, Ricardo A. Rosselló.

The protest was one of the largest ever seen on the island, as Puerto Ricans streamed into the capital in a spontaneous eruption of fury over the years of recession, mismanagement, natural disaster and corruption that have fueled a recent exodus.

Rosselló said Sunday that he would step down from the leadership of his party and pledged not to run for reelection in 2020. But the 40-year-old former biomedical scientist and businessman is growing increasingly isolated as a series of influential political leaders have called on him to accede to public demands for an immediate resignation.

“Governor, Puerto Rico Demands Your Resignation,” the island’s largest-circulation daily newspaper, El Nuevo Día, said in a front-page editorial Monday.

The newspaper, citing an analysis by a geographer, said more than 500,000 people attended Monday’s protest. The organizers had not yet cited an attendance estimate and police said they did not plan to offer one.

The unrest erupted this month when Puerto Rico’s Center for Investigative Journalism published nearly 900 pages of transcripts of Telegram messaging app chats involving Rosselló and 11 of his friends and advisers. The exchanges revealed an arrogant “bro” culture of elites who joked about making chumps out of even their own supporters.

In an interview with Fox News on Monday, Rosselló said he has apologized to some of those named in the chat but still has work to do as governor.

“I have made a decision; I’m not going to run,” he said. “I’m not going to seek reelection. And that way I can focus on the job at hand.”

Carmen Yulín Cruz, mayor of San Juan, said Puerto Rico faces the possibility of significant political change for the first time in years.

“It’s not that we want to blow up the system,” she said. “It is that the system has imploded.”

[CARLOS GIUSTI/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS] Puerto Rican singer Ricky Martin, atop truck, participates with other celebrities in a protest demanding the resignation of governor Ricardo Rossello in San Juan Monday. Protesters are demanding that Rossello step down for his treatment of his constituents.

[PEDRO PORTAL/MIAMI HERALD] Estimates are that 500,000 Puerto Ricans marched on the Las Americas expressway and throughout San Juan on Monday.