By THE STAR STAFF
Popular Democratic Party (PDP) Sen. Juan Zaragoza Gómez announced on Monday his interest in seeking a seat on the PDP governing board and an eventual run for governor under the PDP banner.
“I want to consign my eventual aspiration to the presidency of the Popular Democratic Party and to a gubernatorial candidacy for the Popular Democratic Party,” Zaragoza said at a press conference in which the president of the PDP and the island Senate, José Luis Dalmau Santiago, participated.
PDP Vice President and Morovis Mayor Carmen Maldonado González pointed out that in view of Monday afternoon’s meeting of the party’s governing board, her position is that the choice of available spaces on the board must be filled after the PDP presidential election in May.
“The reality is that the General Assembly determined last November that there was an election now in February for the vacancies on the Board, but the reality is that the work was not done internally and there is no time,” Maldonado said in an interview on Radio Isla. “I believe that the popular [party membership] must be given the opportunity to choose the person who presides over the party and who forms their working group for reorganization, fundraising, reorganization work in the municipalities and, very importantly, structuring the electoral scaffolding.”
Regarding the possible candidacies of Zaragoza and Villalba Mayor Luis Javier Hernández, Maldonado pointed out that “what this shows is that we have a vibrant party, with good candidates, prepared people who are interested in contributing to the political process, and to me it is good news that the popular [party membership] have options to lead the PDP.”
“The political opposition knows that when the ‘populares’ of all Puerto Rico organize ourselves properly, we win and govern well,” she said. “That is my mission and I am ready to fulfill it.”