Popular Democratic Party (Puerto Rico)

Template:Liberal party The Popular Democratic Party of Puerto Rico —or Partido Popular Democrático de Puerto Rico (PPD) in Spanish— is a political party that stands for Puerto Rico to be a free associated state of the United States, which is also known as a commonwealth status. The PPD is currently the party in power in Puerto Rico, with Sila María Calderón as governor (the first woman to be Puerto Rican governor in history), having won the 2000 elections.

Those who follow the PPD ideology are called populares (or populars in English).

Political ideals

The PPD's political ideals call for a Puerto Rico that is self-dependent in some areas and dependent on the United States in others. Basically because of this, Puerto Rico is generally considered to be a country and not a state of the American union. For example, Puerto Rico has its own Olympic Games representation

History

Foundation

The PPD was founded in 1938 by Luis Muñoz Marín.

1940s

In 1949, under the leadership of Luis Muñoz Marín, the PPD won the first democratically organized elections in Puerto Rico.

1950s

During the 1950s, Luis Muñoz Marín remained as Puerto Rican governor.

1960s

In 1964, PPD candidate Roberto Sánchez Vilella had become the second governor to be democratically elected in Puerto Rico. The party remained in power until 1968, when Luis A. Ferré, of the then newly found New Progressive Party of Puerto Rico (PNP), won the elections.

1970s

In 1972, with Rafael Hernández Colón as their new leader, the PPD returned to power. However, this was a briefly lived victory for the party, because in 1976, PNP candidate Carlos Romero Barcelo defeated Colón.

1980s

In 1980, the PPD threatened once again, with Colón as candidate, to come back to power, losing by only 3,000 votes in the elections that year. That has been the closest election for Puerto Rican governor in history to date.

In 1984, Colón once again became governor. His second term was marked by his fight to keep the Law 936 running. The PPD helped establishing the law, which dictates that American companies can be allowed to operate in Puerto Rico with tax cuts.

In 1988, Colón was re-elected. That same year Hector Luis Acevedo, the PPD's candidate for mayor in San Juan, won the election for that position by only forty-nine votes. It was also the year that Santitos Negron, mayor of Cabo Rojo, left the party to become the first man not affiliated with any of the three major parties in Puerto Rico to win an electoral position in the country when he retained his seat as mayor as an independent candidate.

1990s

In 1992, after Colón decided not to run for governor again, the PPD elected Victoria Melo Munoz, daughter of Luis Muñoz Marín, to run for governor. She became the first woman in Puerto Rican history to run for governor, but she lost the election to Pedro Rosselló. In 1996, Hector Luis Acevedo ran for governor, but once again, the PPD candidate lost to Roselló.

2000s

In 2000, Sila Maria Calderon regained the governor's seat for the PPD, beating PNP candidate Carlos Ignacio Pesquera, and Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP) candidate Ruben Berrios.

Calderon has announced that she will not be running for governor in 2004. Her proposed heir as PPD leader was Jose Alfredo Hernandez Mayoral, son of Rafael Hernández Colón, but he retired from the political life, at least for the time being, because of his son's health problems. As of this moment, Anibal Acevedo Vila is the substitute for Calderon as party leader and PPD governor candidate for the 2004 elections but according to Puerto Rican laws, a new candidate can emerge 3 months before the Puerto Rican election day, leaving August 2004 as the crucial month for any new aspirants to run for governor.

Party logo

File:Ppdlogo.gif

PPD logo: "Bread, Land, Freedom".

The PPD's uses as a logo the silhouette of a rural farm worker wearing a straw hat, with the words "pan, tierra, libertad" (bread, land, freedom in English) circling the man.

Important party leaders

External links

ppdpr.net - official site.