By The Star Staff
Although the announcement has yet to be made of the candidate for resident commissioner who will be the running mate of current Resident Commissioner Jenniffer González Colón in her quest to become the New Progressive Party’s (NPP) candidate for governor, González Colón said Monday that Edwin Mundo Ríos, the campaign director of Gov. Pedro Pierluisi Urrutia, is “panicked” about the soon-to-be announced candidate’s identity.
“First I have to laugh, because the governor’s campaign manager is more interested in my campaign than his,” González Colón told reporters. “And I would urge you to start looking for your candidate for resident commissioner; I have had mine for a month, and every Monday or Sunday, they attack me with things.” “I think they are terrified of the person I have selected for resident commissioner, because instead of talking about looking for a candidate for themselves, they are focused on attacking mine without knowing who he is,” she added.
When asked if her candidate for the island’s non-voting delegate to the U.S. Congress would be the former secretary of state under the administration of former Gov. Ricky Rosselló Nevares, of Elmer Román, under the context that he gave his support to the LUMA Energy contract at that time, González Colón responded: “Those are the allegations.”
“When I announce my candidate, they will answer all the questions there,” she said. “Those are allegations. I am not going to answer the allegations or speculations. Much less, people throwing stones without knowing who the candidate is.”
Regarding the issue of oversight of the LUMA Energy contract, González Colón attacked Pierluisi, stating that: “And someone who has been a lawyer for LUMA is the governor, and I believe that in that sense the big difference that you will see with me, I am going to supervise this contract; I am going to supervise LUMA so that it provides efficient service, economical service and service that the people of Puerto Rico provide -- those are going to be my functions.”
On Sunday, Mundo Ríos called on the resident commissioner “to explain how she has used the issue of LUMA’s hiring as a political balloon to attack the NPP administration since 2021 and will now announce as her running mate the person who, as Secretary of State, evaluated the contract with LUMA and authorized it on June 22, 2020.”
He stated that on Dec. 3, González Colón will present Elmer Román as her candidate for the position of resident commissioner.
“Everyone already knows her candidate because she has offered it to several people who have declined to run with her as a candidate for governor,” said the former NPP electoral commissioner. “The former secretary of the Department of State under Wanda Vázquez, Elmer Román, was the only person who agreed to run with the resident commissioner.”
Mundo Ríos pointed out that “Elmer Román also has a lot to explain because he has never joined the NPP nor has he helped the party move the statehood agenda. In fact, in 2020, while he lived in Puerto Rico and served as secretary of state, he did not even join in the primaries nor did he go to vote for statehood in the general elections.”