Rep. Aponte Hernández calls on statehood-leaning MVC members to join NPP
By The Star Staff
Given the recent public admission that the Citizen Victory Movement (MVC) does not believe in the capitalist system, at-large Rep. José Aponte Hernández on Monday called on the members of that party who treasure statehood to enter the ranks of the New Progressive Party.
“Yesterday, Sunday, what many of us know became public knowledge when the MVC admitted that they are an anti-capitalist movement, against free trade and the development of free enterprise,” Aponte Hernández said. “The central axis of our democracy is the economic system we have. The MVC intends to impose on us a model like that of Cuba. No person who believes in freedom, who treasures his American citizenship and wants permanent union can serve in that party. No person who seeks equality for Puerto Rico can militate in a community that clearly postulates against everything that statehood represents.”
The former speaker of the island House or Representatives made his statements after the MVC on Sunday marketed its “Anticapitalist Network” with an event held at the Puerto Rican Workers Union in Río Piedras.
“Yesterday’s promotion of the MVC’s Anticapitalist Network, with an activity in which a senator and a representative of that party participated as keynote speakers, makes it clear that there is no room for statehooders, because statehooders believe in freedom of trade; we do not believe in a communist economic system, where a group orders how things are done for the rest of the population,” Aponte Hernández said. “Such communist economic experiments, as in the case of North Korea, Venezuela and Cuba, have left populations in extreme poverty. No statehooder wants that for Puerto Rico. No statehooder wants a communist regime.”
“The doors of the NPP, the only party that stands for equal rights, freedom and democracy, are open to anyone in the MVC party who believes in statehood, to unite to work for that ideal,” the veteran lawmaker said. “No one who believes in statehood can remain in that party [the MVC] after yesterday’s pronouncement. The Anticapitalist Network of the movement is a clear and forceful admission that its postulates are communist, totally against what statehood represents.”