By The Star Staff
Puerto Rico’s chapter of the Republican Party has appointed a committee whose goal is to show that if Puerto Rico ever becomes a state, it would be Republican.
The local GOP’s decision comes even though the national Republican Party removed the U.S. territory’s status from its political platform. Most Republicans believe that if Puerto Rico ever were to become a state, it would be Democratic.
As a territory, Puerto Ricans cannot vote for president. Still, people on the island can express their preference for one of the two main national political parties: the Republican Party or the Democratic Party.
Republican Party Chairman for Puerto Rico Ángel Cintrón García said in a statement issued over the weekend that the party appointed a committee of Republican supporters led by Alfredo Ocasio, a legal adviser of the GOP, and co-directed by Zoraida Buxó, a delegate for statehood in the U.S. Senate, to promote the triumph on the current ballot of the Republican Party and its presidential candidate, Donald Trump.
In July, the local GOP pledged all its 35 delegates to Trump during the Republican National Convention.
“Today, the Republican Party of Puerto Rico is proud to announce the campaign’s launch, in a unified statewide effort to mobilize the conservative electorate to demonstrate to the United States of America that, if Puerto Rico becomes a state, it would be Republican,” the party said.
Ocasio supports conservative values and is a member of the Puerto Rican delegation that exercised the right to vote at the last Republican Party Convention held in Wisconsin, where Donald Trump was officially nominated as the party’s presidential candidate.
The committee leader said the effort would be a broad one, which would include talks and social networks with the purpose of mobilizing the conservative electorate in Puerto Rico.
“We will be open to public scrutiny, to answer questions and clarify doubts about what the conservative movement means on the island,” Ocasio said. “How we think and how we aspire to live within our nation.”
“The Republican Party promotes the cessation of illegal immigration, integrity in all elections, where only U.S. citizens vote as stated in the Constitution, as well as the defense of the freedoms that are framed in the Constitution, especially the freedom of speech contained in the First Amendment and the right to own firearms, the Second Amendment,” Ocasio said. “Likewise, the defense of the free market.”
The GOP also supports the right to private property.
“We are advocating for the elimination of taxes on tips, overtime income, and Social Security income, which is part of our candidate Donald Trump’s platform,” Ocasio added.
“We aspire to the return of manufacturing industries for the creation of jobs, the development of our energy industry so as not to depend on countries like Venezuela, and we seek that “every citizen can live in maximum freedom,” he said.
Ocasio said conservatives “seek the reduction of the federal government’s power in favor of the states, as was the recent decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, which gave the power to the people to decide on a fundamental issue such as the right to life.”
“We promote the values of family unity, that every child has an education free of the ‘woke’ culture, of gender ideology and of groups that seek to indoctrinate in hatred of democracy and freedom,” he continued.
The GOP adviser said that, contrary to what some think, “this vote is not symbolic, it has a lot of significance if the Republican Party wins, because it would be a giant step toward statehood, since it will break down the last barrier of the alleged allegation that we would be a Democratic state.”
“We fight for the statehood vote to return to its home, the Republican Party, since it has been demonstrated that, under the Democratic Party, Puerto Rico will never be a state,” Ocasio said. “All this in view of the fact that, in the last electoral campaign, the [ticket of] Joe Biden and Kamala Harris promised statehood to Puerto Ricans as a campaign promise, and even when they had control of the House and Senate for the first two years of the four-year term, they decided to shelve and break their promise.”
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