WASHINGTON, D.C. – Weeks after Puerto Rico’s surprising primary results and months before the November elections, political scientists on the island said they’re noticing a shift in Puerto Rico’s politics. They’re noticing changes not only in who is registering to vote but also changes on the issues they’re voting on.
The June primaries had a surprising upset by Jenniffer Gonzalez, who defeated incumbent Governor Pedro Pierluisi.
Jose Molinelli, a political science professor at the InterAmerican Univerisity in Puerto Rico, believes utility issues like water and energy were huge factors for voters in the New Progressive Party’s primary race for governor.
“The current governor has been a really strong supporter of certain privatization contracts which were made to assure better public service utilities in Puerto Rico and he has been a staunch defender of them in the past four years and that has certainly caused him a lot of votes when you see a lot of voters not receiving energy,” said Molinelli. “We do have a really strong battle between what we really see as a political establishment in Puerto Rico versus a more populist formation of the NPP movement spearheaded by the Resident Commissioner Jenniffer Gonzalez, so certainly the energy in public service delivery is what made a difference.”
Molinelli said there’s been a shift away from the establishment perspective of the NPP, which he said has been under fire for corruption and accusations.
“In one way or another, this might actually represent a gap through which new parties like the Citizens Victory Movement could actually get into the election as well,” said Molinelli.
He also sees a change in who is registering to vote.
“We’re seeing a really strong wave of youth signing up to the electoral spaces in Puerto Rico and we’re still not very clear on how that’s going to shift the political paradigm in the election for example,” said Molinelli. “We don’t know if we have a more conservative or establishment leaning youth, we do not know that. We know that some of the dissident parties, be that of the Citizen’s Victory Movement and be that the Independence Party have done a lot of proactive recruiting; they even went to a Bad Bunny concert to get people to sign up for elections. A hypothesis many of us have here in Puerto Rico have is that it’s going to represent a large voting bloc addition to the dissidents parties of the island.”
While energy and infrastructure remain a top concern for voters, Molinelli said other issues like the national debt and auditing it could be strong issues for voters in November.
“It’s really interesting to see the status of Puerto Rico are no longer topics spearheading the political divide, rather than which [inaudible] should govern its stake with some establishment individuals advocating for a stronger cooperation between the public and private sector and other candidates advocating for the dismantling of this public-private partnership in infrastructure or the total control of government or more left leaning platforms,” said Molinelli. “So it’s certainly going to be a main issue.”