Ricard Rosselló to push Congress to admit Puerto Rico as America’s 51st state, but experts suggest referendum result will have little impact on US lawmakers

The governor of Puerto Rico, Ricard Rosselló, has announced that he is to visit Washington in the next phase of his campaign to turn the island into the 51st state of the United States.

Rosselló will go to the US capital armed with a 97% backing for statehood from voters in Sunday’s plebiscite on the future of the stricken US colony. But he faces an uphill struggle impressing his case on the US Congress, which holds ultimate power over Puerto Rico, given the historically low turnout of the vote and the boycott staged by opposition parties.

Puerto Ricans vote in favour of being 51st US state, but doubts remain Read more

The governor, a 38-year-old member of the ruling Partido Nuevo Progresista (PNP), insisted the referendum sent a clear and strong message to Washington. “From today, the federal government will no longer be able to ignore the voice of the majority of the American citizens in Puerto Rico. It would be highly contradictory for Washington to demand democracy in other parts of the world, and not respond to the legitimate right to self-determination that was exercised today in the American territory of Puerto Rico,” he said after the vote.

But observers of Puerto Rico’s long and tortured relationship with its vastly more wealthy and powerful overlord scoffed at the idea that the plebiscite would have any impact. They pointed to a turnout of 23% of the territory’s 2.3 million registered voters – a dismal figure on an island that regularly has participation rates of 60% or 70%.

As the columnist of El Nuevo Día, Wilda Rodríguez, put it: “Until yesterday, the participation of Puertorriquenos in elections was a cause of national pride. After yesterday it’s officially trivial.”

In Sunday’s referendum, the final tally stood at 518,199 overall voters. Of those, 97% voted to become the 51st state, 1.5% voted for full independence or a form of sovereignty, and 1.3% in favour of the status quo.

The tiny vote for the two alternative positions on the ballot forms were in no small part a reflection of the boycott launched against they plebiscite by the opposition Partido Popular Democrático (PPD) and the independence movement.

The standing of this tropical Caribbean island in relation to the US has been the running sore, and dominant topic of local conversation, ever since it was handed to Washington as war booty at the end of the Spanish-American war of 1898. In 1917, the islanders were granted US citizenship, but they continue to labour under a political half-life in which they can elect their own local government and governor but cannot vote in federal elections.

Several glaring anomalies arise from this colonial pact. One of the more poignant is the fact that Puerto Ricans can serve in the US military and be sent into battle by a president whom they cannot elect.

The constraints placed on the population by a distant colonial power have had a particularly destructive impact in the last few years when Puerto Rico’s lack of economic flexibility has contributed to a devastating financial crisis. The debt burden combined with unmet pensions now stand at more than $120bn, and painful cuts have been imposed by a fiscal control board that exerts federal oversight over the budget.

The likelihood that the US Congress will want to take on Puerto Rico as a fully-fledged state of the union at the time of such financial meltdown is seen by most observers as slight to none. On top of that comes the nature of Puerto Rico linguistically, culturally and racially in terms of its integration with the larger power.

“This brings out the worst in the US Congress,” said Dr Amilcar Barreto, a specialist in Puerto Rican politics at Northeastern University in Boston. “To be blunt, it brings out the racist side of Congress. To admit to the union a Spanish-speaking, racially-diverse population – hell no.”