By The Star Staff
At-large Rep. José “Che” Pérez Cordero of the New Progressive Party (NPP) asked U.S. Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-N.Y.) on Monday to respect and promote the result of the Election Day status consultation in which the statehood option prevailed decisively with 57% of the vote.
“Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez must respect that the majority of the People of Puerto Rico reaffirmed, freely and democratically, their intention to have a permanent union with the United States, which can only be achieved through statehood,” Pérez Cordero said in a written statement. “Fifty-seven percent of voters on the island favored the admission of Puerto Rico as a state of the union.”
The lawmaker’s statements came after Velázquez indicated in an interview that it is up to the governor-elect, Jenniffer González Colón, to promote the results of the consultation before Congress.
“The People of Puerto Rico gave us a mandate through suffrage to promote statehood,” Pérez Cordero said. “All elected officials in Puerto Rico, without distinction, must work to enforce the will of the people, as expressed at the polls. Statehood prevailed with more than 541,000 votes on the night of the event; there are still tens of thousands of early votes [left to count] that we are sure will be, in their majority, for statehood. What we are talking about here is that there is a decision of the sovereign, the People, and the Congresswoman must respect it and work for it.”
In a press conference before the general elections, Velázquez endorsed Juan Dalmau Ramírez of the Puerto Rican Independence Party, who promotes the independence of Puerto Rico, for governor.
“The status consultation was developed using as a basis HR 2757 (‘Puerto Rico Admission Act’), a bipartisan measure filed in the federal House of Representatives, and which already has 100 co-authors between Democrats and Republicans, including Velázquez,” Pérez Cordero said. “A similar measure in the federal Senate already has the support of 27 senators. My call is to the Congresswoman to work in favor of the results of the consultation since she was co-author of the bill on which it was based. I will continue working so that the will of the People of Puerto Rico is respected to leave, once and for all, the colonial regime that we live under and which limits our social, political and economic development. The channels of communication are always there to work for Puerto Rico.”
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