Fortuno Wins Puerto Rico Primary; Will Face Acevedo Vila in November

Puerto Rico's current resident commissioner, Luis Fortuno, will face Gov. Anibal Acevedo Vila in the commonwealth's Nov. 4 general election after beating out rival Sen. Pedro Rossello as the New Progressive Party's candidate for governor in Sunday's primary election.

Joining Fortuno on the NPP ticket is Pedro Pierluisi, former secretary of justice, who is seeking to follow Fortuno as the next resident commissioner, Puerto Rico's sole congressional representative. Acevedo Vila is the incumbent on the Popular Democratic Party ticket, with Alfredo Salazar, the former acting president of the Government Development Bank for Puerto Rico, seeking to gain the congressional seat for the party.

Fortuno won nearly 60% of the primary against Rossello, who served as the island's governor from 1993 to 2001, and now represents the Arecibo district, located on the north of the island, in the commonwealth's Senate. Describing Sunday's primary as "a major call for change," Luis Davila Colon, a prominent political analyst who hosts a daily political radio show in San Juan, said Fortuno grabbed Rossello's traditional base of rural and working-class voters.

"He won every major demographic sector, including the golden ages," Davila Colon said. "So he won all of them. And in that sense, his appeal is a type of a [Barack Obama] appeal. He has an Obama-type message but on a conservative basis."

Sunday's primary could break voting records, with preliminary numbers indicating that 74% of registered voters participated in the election, breaking a 63% record turnout in 2003, according to Davila Colon.

Acevedo Vila, whose PDP party favors keeping the island as a U.S. territory, beat Rossello for governor in 2004 and analysts said NPP voters, who are pro-statehood, wanted a candidate who could regain the island's top political seat. Rossello's gubernatorial career has been surrounded by corruption, with members of his administration convicted of bribery and extortion.

"People did not want Rossello back and not just the electorate at large, but particularly the pro-statehood electorate. They wanted to actually have a candidate that might win in the general elections in November," said Carlos Vargas, researcher at the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College in Manhattan, part of the City University of New York system.

Both Davila Colon and Vargas said Fortuno's ability to capture voters across party lines puts the NPP candidate ahead of Acevedo Vila and Salazar.

"Somebody who is recognizable not just because he beat this strong leader, but also somebody who has this strong position as resident commissioner in Washington. Fortuno's not an unknown quantity," Vargas said.

In addition, Acevedo Vila is facing controversy of his own, with rumors of a federal indictment due to possible illegal campaign financing. Yet federal officials have been investigating the governor for two years, long enough for Puerto Ricans to question the legitimacy of the inquiry.

Whether the governor will face campaign finance charges or not, both analysts said the Fortuno/Pierluisi ticket will be hard to beat.

"Fortuno and Pierluisi are going to trounce them," Davila Colon said. "There was a message [Sunday] particularly with the crossover vote from other parties, that people are fed up with what they have. They want change and Fortuno is a force of change after eight years of PDP."

Puerto Rican residents have been paying higher water, electric, and public transportation costs along with a new 7% sales tax since lawmakers implemented fiscal reforms in 2006. The higher water and electric costs enabled the Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority and the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority to stand on their own without subsidies from the central government.

While households have taken on these financial strains, Acevedo Vila's administration has decreased the commonwealth's structural deficit to $400 million for the current fiscal year, which began July 1, from $1.4 billion in fiscal 2006. In addition, new-money general obligation borrowing will decrease to $275 million for fiscal 2008 from $325 million and $500 million in fiscal 2006 and fiscal 2007, respectively.

Puerto Rico has $46 billion of outstanding debt, which is rated BBB-minus by Standard & Poor's and Aa3 by Moody's Investors Service.

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