Caribbean Matters: The truth behind Biden’s primary win in Puerto Rico

You may have heard that Joe Biden won the Puerto Rican Democratic Party primary Sunday with 98% of the vote, which awards him 55 delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August. A Google news search brings up multiple headlines touting the win, and it was virtually the only news about Puerto Rico to be found in mainstream media this week. Biden faced nominal opposition in the primary from Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota, who dropped out of the race, and author Marianne Williamson.

The fact that Puerto Rico even has primaries when Puerto Ricans are ineligible to vote in the general election is a relic of colonial history and politics that confuses mainland U.S. residents. Frankly, Puerto Ricans on the island showed little enthusiasm for either of the two mainland political parties. Turnout was only 0.26% for Democrats and Republicans scrapped their primary altogether and shifted to a sort of caucus, where delegates selected their candidate. AP reported:

Republicans scrapped their traditional primary and instead awarded their 23 delegates to former President Donald Trump on Sunday in a caucus-style vote at which approximately 77% of 1,340 eligible party officials participated. Trump was the only candidate on the ballot.

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The fact is, the island’s political party structure is not made up of the two key mainland ones—Democrats and Republicans. Instead, the island has two major parties: the Popular Democratic Party of Puerto Rico, known as PPD, and the New Progressive Party, or PNP. There is also a new challenger which is composed of a coalition between the Puerto Rican Independence Party, or PIP, and the new Citizens’ Victory Movement (Movimiento Victoria Ciudadana, or MVC) going up against the two older and entrenched major parties. The island’s political parties are primarily organized around one issue: Puerto Rico’s past, present, and future status in relationship to the United States.

Outsiders find it confusing that key political figures in the two older parties also list themselves as either Democrats of Republicans. What statesiders find even more confusing is the word “progressive” in the name of the PNP. It isn’t progressive—at least not the way most of us think of the term as shorthand for liberal/left of center. It’s easier to think of it this way: The PNP is for statehood, while the PPD is pro status quo as a territory or “free associated state” (which is actually a misnomer). U.S. law and policy defines Puerto Rico as a territory. I prefer the term colony, as do those Puerto Ricans who chafe under U.S. rule and misrule.  

The advent of the PIP-MVC coalition and how it could change Puerto Rico’s future was discussed by Professor Ed Morales in a March interview for Jacobin with MVC Sen. Rafael Bernabe, titled “A New Alliance Could Change Puerto Rican Politics.”

Ed Morales: The deterioration of Puerto Rico’s economy and the US Congress’s imposition of the FOMB to manage the $72 billion debt crisis has led to Puerto Rico’s people losing faith in its traditional electoral politics. What are the conditions that lead to the emergence of the alliance between the MVC and the PIP?

Rafael Bernabe: When you look at what has happened in the past fifteen years in Puerto Rico, it’s not too hard to see the reason La Alianza came about.

These parties combined used to get around 97 percent of the votes between them. The PIP got 3 percent, and they got the rest. And now that’s down to like 64 percent: the PNP gets 33 percent; the PPD got 31 percent. These political parties have basically collapsed over the past ten years. In 2016, [ousted former governor] Ricky Rosselló won the governorship with 42 percent of the vote, which was already low enough, and then he was not even able to complete his term because the people got so fed up with his government that they mobilized and they overthrew him. It’s the closest thing we’ve had to a revolution in Puerto Rico. People were in the street mobilizing for twenty days nonstop and forced the governor to resign. In the election in 2017, the PIP jumped from 3 percent to 14 percent. And the MVC, which was participating for the first time, gets 14 percent, which is an indication that people are very much open to new alternatives. So the rise of the vote for the MVC and for the people is very much part of the same process, because many of the people who were on the streets trying to get rid of him were seeking new alternatives. Now that we are in an alliance, we have come together in one single force.

Here’s the Associated Press coverage of the Democratic primary, which includes an interview with the current mayor of San Juan, Miguel Romero Lugo, who is a Democrat and member of the pro-statehood PNP. 

This post on X (formerly Twitter) gives you a picture of the turnout for the Democratic primary.

Translation:

“And with 100% of electoral colleges reported, participation in the Democratic presidential primary held today in P.R. was 0.26%: 5,014 votes out of 1,927,744 registered – 2,487 valid, 98 blank, 33 protested/not awarded and 2,396 challenged”

These figures clearly show that “enthusiastic” would not be a word tied to the abysmal turnout. There are clear historical reasons for this. What concerns me is that while I saw lots of mainland Democrats on social media celebrating Biden’s win, few of them are looking at the severe problems Puerto Ricans currently face, which have little chance of being resolved unless the U.S. changes its policies towards its colony. Rather than go into detail about my use of the word “colony” to describe Puerto Rico’s current status, here’s a link to my previous story on that subject, which includes the history of the “insular cases”:

Caribbean Matters: Yes, Puerto Rico is a U.S. colony

As long as the United States follows the doctrine of the insular cases, “democracy” for the colonies will exist in name only, no matter who gets elected to office on the island.

There is action being taken here by elected officials and civil rights groups addressing the Puerto Rico Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights.

In March, Spectrum’s Corina Cappabianca wrote an article titled “New memo examines Puerto Rico’s territorial status”:

The Puerto Rico Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is studying the impacts of the island’s territorial status on its residents. Recently, it released a memo detailing inequities residents face in accessing federal programs.

The Committee took testimony from Puerto Ricans, historians, economists, and advocates seeking to end Puerto Rico’s territorial status. George Laws Garcia, the executive director of the Puerto Rico Statehood Council was among those who testified. “The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights setting up the Puerto Rico Advisory Council is literally the first time that any entity within the federal executive is, in a detailed and systematic way, studying this issue of territorial inequality, and eventually will come up with recommendations on what should be done about them,” Laws Garcia said.

The memo details accounts of disparities between those who live in the states, and those who reside in Puerto Rico when it comes to receiving Medicaid, Medicare and disaster assistance. “Most elderly people receive federal health care benefits through Medicare. In Puerto Rico, U.S. citizens on the island pay federal payroll taxes just like everyone else across the whole country, but the way that our elderly get treated under Medicare is different,” Laws Garcia said. “And, one significant example of this is the fact that we don’t have the same nursing home care benefits under Medicare in Puerto Rico than you do stateside.”

Despite being U.S. citizens, Puerto Ricans who reside on the island cannot vote for president in the general election, and their sole representative in Congress does not have voting power.