Partido Popular Democratico
Partido Popular Democratico (Popular Democratic Party, or PPD) is a Puerto Rican 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, governor Sila Maria Calderon (the first woman to be Puerto Rican governor in history) having won the 2000 elections.The PPD's political ideals call for a Puerto Rico that is self-dependent in some areas, and dependent from the 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 their own Olympic representation.
The PPD was formed in 1938. In 1949, under the leadership of Luis Munoz Marin, the PPD won the first democratically organized elections in Puerto Rico. The party remained in power until 1968, when Luis A. Ferre, of the then newly found Partido Nuevo Progresista (PNP), won the elections. In 1964, PPD candidate Roberto Sanchez Vilella had become the second governor to be democratically elected in Puerto Rico.
In 1972, with Rafael Hernandez Colon 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 Colon. In 1980, the PPD threatened, once again with Colon 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 governor in Puerto Rican history to date.
In 1984, Colon once again became governor. His second term was marked by his fight to keep the 936 law running. The PPD had helped establish the law, which dictates that American companies can be allowed to operate in Puerto Rico with tax cuts. In 1988, Colon was re-elected. That was the year that Hector Luis Acevedo, the PPD's candidate for mayor in San Juan, won the election for that position by only seven votes. That 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 to win an electoral position in Puerto Rico, when he retained his seat as mayor as an independent candidate.
In 1992, after Colon decided not to run for governor again, the PPD elected Victoria Melo Munoz, daughter of Munoz Marin, to run for governor. She became the first woman in Puerto Rican history to run for governor, but she lost the election to Pedro Rosello. In 1996, Acevedo ran for governor, but once again, the PPD candidate lost to Rosello. In 2000, Calderon regained the governor's seat for the PPD, beating PNP candidate Carlos Pesquera, and PIP candidate Ruben Berrios.
Calderon has announced that she will not be running for governor in 2004. Her proposed heir as PPD leader, Hernandez Colon's son Jose Alfredo Hernandez Mayoral, has hadto retire from the political life, at least for the time being, because of his own son's health problems. As of this moment, the PPD has not decided on a substitute for Calderon as party leader.
The PPD's logo is that of a man wearing a straw hat, with the words pan, tierra, libertad (bread, territory, freedom) circling the man. Because the PPD's logo is red, the party is also known as the red party in Puerto Rico. It should be clarified that Puerto Ricans do not mean to identify it with communism by calling the party that.
