Jarabo plans to appeal his ouster to PDP governing board

By The Star Staff

Former Speaker of the Puerto Rico House of Representatives José Ronaldo “Ronny” Jarabo said Tuesday he will appeal Popular Democratic Party (PDP) President Jesús Manuel Ortiz González’s decision to oust him from the PDP after he publicly supported the reelection bid of current San Juan Mayor Miguel Romero Lugo, who is a member of the New Progressive Party (NPP).

Jarabo said he plans to appeal the decision to the party’s governing board, which has jurisdiction. He also said the courts can decide on the matter. He said Ortiz González does not have the authority to disaffiliate him from the PDP.

“I am a ‘popular’ regardless of the actions taken by the PDP dictator,” he said in a radio interview. “I feel affiliated with the PDP and he can not disaffiliate me. He can expel me if he is right in his interpretation.”

New Progressive Party (NPP) Secretary General Hiram Torres Montalvo on Monday called on members of the PDP who “feel threatened by the party’s current president” to join the NPP.

He made his remarks after Ortiz González ousted Jarabo from the party on Sunday for publicly supporting Romero at an event in Hato Rey. Jarabo reportedly criticized former San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz Soto of the PDP.

“Ortiz’s actions recently make it clear that members of the PDP who believe in permanent union and U.S. citizenship have no room in its elitist leadership,” Torres Montalvo said.

Torres Montalvo added that the NPP doesn’t do such things, but in 2005, the NPP froze out five senators, headed by former Senate President Kenneth McClintock, for opposing a party move to install former Gov. Pedro Rosselló, who had been elected to the Senate, as Senate president. The situation caused a rift in the NPP.