Patricia Mazzei and Frances Robles

The unanimous ruling ousted Pierluisi and paved the way for Wanda Vázquez, the secretary of justice, to take the oath of office as Puerto Rico’s third governor in five days.

With her husband and daughter by her side, Vázquez raised her right hand and was sworn in by Chief Justice Maite D. Oronoz Rodríguez at the Supreme Court in San Juan, the capital.

“Puerto Rico needs certainty and stability,” Vázquez, who had previously said she did not want the job, said in a statement before her swearing-in. She became the second female governor in Puerto Rican history.

The 29-page ruling said Pierluisi could not remain as governor, and called for “an orderly succession.”

Shortly before 5 p.m., Pierluisi said he would step aside. He had earlier left La Fortaleza, the governor’s official residence, in a black SUV with tinted windows.

“I want to be clear that the only motivation I have had during this time, as always, has been the well-being of Puerto Rico,” he said in a statement, in which he wished Vázquez well in her new role. “This is a time when we must all unite for Puerto Rico, leaving behind any partisan, ideological or personal agendas.”

The court ruled in favor of the Puerto Rico Senate, which sued late Sunday asking the court to issue a preliminary injunction against Pierluisi taking over the office of chief executive. He became governor Friday, even though he had not been confirmed as secretary of state by both chambers of the Legislative Assembly. Only the House of Representatives approved his recess appointment.

The events of the past few weeks represent the “most important juncture” in Puerto Rico’s history as a democracy, Oronoz wrote in a concurring opinion on Wednesday. “The summer of 2019 will be remembered as an unprecedented moment in which Puerto Ricans — of all ages, ideologies, backgrounds and creeds — threw themselves into the street to demand more from their government.”

Thomas Rivera Schatz, the Senate president who brought the legal challenge to Pierluisi’s appointment, said the court’s ruling showed it had been an illegal attempt by Puerto Rico’s ruling party to designate a successor outside the bounds of the constitution.

“To those who lent themselves, for their personal interest, to this embarrassing attempt to install an illegitimate government, that is how the history of Puerto Rico will remember you,” Schatz, who has been mentioned as a possible candidate for governor, said in a statement.

To justify Pierluisi’s ascent to the governor’s seat, Pierluisi and his predecessor, Ricardo Rosselló, cited a 2005 statute that said the secretary of state did not require legislative confirmation to step in as governor. On Wednesday, the court declared that portion of the law unconstitutional. The rest of the law, regarding the line of succession, is valid, the court found.

“The constitution requires the advice and consent of both chambers,” said Yanira Reyes Gil, a constitutional scholar and associate law professor at the Interamerican University of Puerto Rico. “It is a basic principle of constitutional law that the constitution takes precedence.”

In a concurring opinion, Justice Ángel Colón Pérez likened the way in which Rosselló handed over power to Pierluisi to the way a king turns over his throne.

“If a country’s ruler were empowered to choose his successor, or possible successor, without a minimal guarantee of democratic consensus, there would not be much difference between our system of government and a monarchy,” he wrote. “We do not live in a monarchy.”

Pierluisi’s lawyers had argued that the Senate could have voted on his nomination, as the House did, but chose not to do so before Rosselló’s resignation became effective Friday. Rosselló was forced out of office by massive public protests prompted by the leak of hundreds of pages of private messages in which he and his aides insulted politicians and everyday Puerto Ricans.

In a news conference Tuesday, Pierluisi, 60, told reporters that he would resign if the court ruled against him.

“The Supreme Court will decide,” he said. “I trust them, and they’ll do the right thing for Puerto Rico.”

Pierluisi was the shortest-serving governor in modern Puerto Rican history. Andrés González Muñoz, a Cuban military general who was named governor in 1898 while Puerto Rico was under Spanish rule, died the same day he arrived to take over the job.

After he was sworn in Friday, Pierluisi, a lawyer, said that while he consulted with Rosselló and Vázquez, he had made the decision himself to take the oath — despite the controversy that he knew existed over the 2005 statute, which had never been challenged in court.

“Who was going to stop me?” he said after being sworn in at his sister’s house.

Puerto Rico’s Constitution does not allow for the calling of early elections, though some lawmakers are now considering a constitutional amendment. Some 15 months remain on the four-year term started by Rosselló.

Pierluisi, like Rosselló, is a member of the ruling New Progressive Party, which supports statehood for Puerto Rico. He is also a Democrat when it comes to national politics, though political parties on the island do not match up with those on the mainland.

The national political affiliation of Vázquez, a career prosecutor, is unclear, if she even has one. Some of the protesters who marched on Rosselló later demonstrated against Vázquez.

In his brief time in office, Pierluisi, the island’s former nonvoting resident commissioner in Congress, emphasized his experience and competence. He made no major decisions and issued no executive orders but tried to give off an air of stability, holding meetings with agency heads and prominent businesspeople and discussing matters such as hurricane preparedness and the new school year.

But the political crisis has paralyzed much of the government for nearly a month and has hurt Puerto Rico’s credibility in Washington, where the Trump administration has already delayed more than $8 billion in federal disaster prevention funds pending more oversight.

Pierluisi said Tuesday that if forced out by the Supreme Court, he had no interest in remaining as secretary of state and would instead return to the private sector. If she does not wish to remain governor, Vázquez could appoint a new secretary of state and then resign.

If that were to occur, one possible candidate would be Jenniffer González-Colón, Puerto Rico’s resident commissioner in Congress, who already has been talked about as running for the seat in 2020. González-Colón is also a member of the ruling party, and her broad popularity could help the New Progressive Party hold on to power. But the crisis has revealed serious rifts among New Progressives, and protesters have made clear that they do not trust most institutions, especially not the party in government.

Sen. Eduardo Bhatia of the opposition Popular Democratic Party, which supports Puerto Rico’s commonwealth status, filed a court brief in support of the Senate’s lawsuit challenging Pierluisi’s appointment.

“They have a habit of doing things in a way that is not consistent with the law,” said Bhatia, one of several Popular Democratic candidates running for governor next year.

Kenneth McClintock, a former New Progressive secretary of state, said Pierluisi’s departure would not have a serious impact on governance.

“He was never a governor,” McClintock said. “He appeared to be a governor. He never was a governor. The swearing in was null.”

Even before he took office, Pierluisi struggled to overcome questions about the conflicts of interest he could face as governor. Lawmakers asked him whether he might some day find himself having to assert attorney-client privilege in matters relating to the fiscal control board, which was created by Congress to oversee Puerto Rico’s finances because of its more than $70 billion in public debt.

Court filings show that Pierluisi earned about $20,000 in legal work for the fiscal control board, according to the Public Accountability Initiative, a nonprofit group that conducts research on Puerto Rico.

The group found that he even billed the board for meetings with his former chief of staff, who now works for the control board. The president of the board is Pierluisi’s brother-in-law.

Pierluisi, the group said, did legal work for the board relating to the restructuring of the electric company’s debt while at the same time serving as a lobbyist for AES Corp., one of the electric company’s creditors.

Although many Puerto Ricans viewed Pierluisi as the least objectionable candidate from the ruling party, activists who led the movement on the streets to unseat the previous governor viewed his selection as an example of holding the seat inside the political establishment.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/07/us/puerto-rico-governor-supreme-court-pierluisi.html" id="546e8c27-3a16-3e5d-a666-29a9cdc5b758">The New York Times</a>.

Puerto Rico Supreme Court Ousts New Governor and Another Is Sworn In

The Puerto Rico Supreme Court threw the leadership of the island into new turmoil on Wednesday, ruling that the governor who took over last week, Pedro Pierluisi, was sworn in on unconstitutional grounds.

With her husband and daughter by her side, Vázquez was sworn in by Chief Justice Maite D. Oronoz Rodríguez at the Supreme Court in San Juan, the capital.

The ruling renders moot Pierluisi’s oath of office, paving the way for Wanda Vázquez, the secretary of justice, to be sworn in as Puerto Rico’s third governor in five days. Vázquez has said that she does not want the job but would fulfill her duties as next in the line of succession.

The ruling will take effect at 5 p.m., “to guarantee an orderly succession.”

The court’s nine justices ruled unanimously in favor of the Puerto Rico Senate, which sued late Sunday asking the court to issue a preliminary injunction against Pierluisi taking over the office of chief executive. He became governor Friday, even though he had not been confirmed as secretary of state by both chambers of the Legislative Assembly. Only the House of Representatives approved his recess appointment.

To justify Pierluisi’s ascent to the governor’s seat, Pierluisi and his predecessor, Gov. Ricardo Rosselló, cited a 2005 statute that said the secretary of state did not require legislative confirmation to step in as governor. On Wednesday, the court declared that law unconstitutional.

Pierluisi’s lawyers had argued that the Senate could have voted on his nomination, as the House did, but chose not to do so before Rosselló’s resignation became effective Friday. The former governor was forced out of office by massive public protests prompted by the leak of hundreds of pages of private messages that showed Rosselló and his aides insulting politicians and everyday Puerto Ricans.

Puerto Rico Supreme Court Rules New Governor Was Unlawfully Sworn In

The Puerto Rico Supreme Court threw the leadership of the island into new turmoil Wednesday, ruling that the new governor who took over last week, Pedro Pierluisi, was sworn in on unconstitutional grounds.

Eight days before Rosselló was scheduled to leave the post he has held since 2017, and as public attention shifted from the streets to the corridors of power, no one on the island of 3.2 million people seemed truly certain who the next governor would be.

A series of names have emerged, nearly all of them saddled with political baggage that carries the potential of new popular unrest. Many signs pointed to the likelihood that any new appointee would be selected by Rosselló — the man many Puerto Ricans fervently wanted out.

The behind-the-scenes scramble portends more complicated days ahead after more than a week of tumultuous street protests and a series of resignations left the government in chaos. Again on Thursday, demonstrators spilled into a highway in San Juan, the capital, and pledged to keep protesting unless the island’s political leaders bring about a genuine change in governance.

“This is an achievement for the people of Puerto Rico, to be here fighting on,” said Coral Alfaro, 25, a small business administrator. “We keep fighting because of an entire corrupt government. It’s been decades of corruption. Little by little, we are succeeding in our goal to clean house in the government.”

Rosselló said he would hand over power to whomever is in place once his resignation takes effect on Aug. 2. Because the position of secretary of state — the designated successor to any departing governor under the constitution — is vacant, the next in line is Wanda Vázquez, the secretary of justice. Rosselló suggested in his resignation speech that Vázquez would likely step in, at least for a time.

But Vázquez hedged about her political future, saying she would accept her constitutional duties “if necessary,” and San Juan was awash in speculation Thursday about who a longer-term successor might be.

Anyone nominated by Rosselló could lack credibility because the person might be seen as a lackey of the ousted administration, said Charles R. Venator Santiago, an associate professor of political science at the University of Connecticut who studies Puerto Rican politics. He also warned that Rosselló’s successor would face similar governing challenges.

“They removed the governor, but they haven’t really dealt with the underlying problem,” Venator said. “You put another person in, and how does that change the structural conditions of society?”

Some local news outlets reported on Wednesday that Rosselló’s resignation was delayed until nearly midnight in part because of internal squabbles within the New Progressive Party, which supports Puerto Rican statehood and controls the Legislature, over who would succeed him.

From a constitutional standpoint, the governor can nominate a secretary of state until his last day in office, and even call a special legislative session to get that person confirmed, said Efrén Rivera Ramos, a law professor at the University of Puerto Rico.

“The question is whether that would be politically viable,” Rivera Ramos said.

Without agreement among Rosselló and legislative leaders about a nominee they all support, the Legislature could refuse to confirm the lame-duck governor’s pick. Rivera Ramos also posited another scenario: Vázquez could assume the governorship, name a secretary of state to succeed her, and then choose to step down.

“Things are still too fluid,” he said. “There is broad distrust, and everything is subject to suspicion.”

Vázquez was facing new questions Thursday, when a local journalist published what are believed to be messages that she exchanged with the governor’s former chief of staff. The messages show her discussing with him her decision not to investigate trailers of undistributed donations that were found abandoned months after Hurricane Maria struck the island in 2017.

At a march on Thursday in San Juan’s financial district, which had been organized before Rosselló’s resignation, a few thousand people celebrated his imminent departure with music and dancing — and protested the possibility that Vázquez would succeed him. “Wanda, you’re next!” some protesters chanted.

“Wanda Vázquez is also corrupt,” said Valerie García, 42, of the town of Carolina. “She has to go.”

Some party insiders suggested an alternative: Thomas Rivera Schatz, the Senate president who has had his own scandals this year. In May, federal authorities arrested the executive director of the Senate Office of Government Affairs and two other people on fraud charges. Federal prosecutors accused them of participating in a scheme involving government contracts that charged for work performed by ghost employees who did not exist on the Senate payroll. Rivara Schatz was not charged.

Protesters have plastered walls near the governor’s official residence in Old San Juan with graffiti objecting to the potential governorship of either Rivera Schatz or Vázquez. Neither speaks English that well, a possible problem at a time when so much federal money for Puerto Rico, still arriving in response to the 2017 hurricane, is at stake.

Kenneth McClintock, a former secretary of state and Senate president, said several friends had called him to ask if he was interested in the post, but the calls did not come from anyone who was “calling on behalf of anyone.”

The hope now, he said, is that those who are advising Rosselló will persuade him to appoint a consensus candidate whom Rivera Schatz and the House speaker, Carlos J. Méndez Núñez, would be willing to confirm.

The most obvious such candidate could be Ramón Luis Rivera Jr., the well-liked mayor of Bayamón, but he has said he does not want the job. Lawrence N. Seilhamer Rodríguez, the vice president of the Senate, who is a former basketball player and engineer, has also been mentioned.

The secretary of housing, Fernando Gil, is bilingual and respected, but would have to be vetted to make sure there have not been any problems with the billions of dollars in federal funds allocated for hurricane housing recovery. The name of Pedro Pierluisi, Puerto Rico’s former resident commissioner in Congress, has also come up.

Rep. Jenniffer González-Colón, the current resident commissioner, enjoys broad support but is unlikely to leave her perch in Washington for what is likely to be a thankless job as a caretaker governor.

“Jenniffer is the most popular public figure of any party in Puerto Rico,” McClintock said. “But she really enjoys what she is doing and would rather concentrate on taking a run in 2020.”

González-Colón said in an interview on Wednesday that no one had asked her about a possible nomination. She declined to disclose her 2020 plans, characterizing the political crisis as too acute for conversations about electoral ambitions.

Carmelo J. Ríos, the Senate majority leader, said in an interview last week that it was a priority for lawmakers to find a consensus secretary of state candidate acceptable to the governor, House and Senate. The eventual nominee should not be a 2020 candidate, Ríos said: “We want someone who will focus on being governor.”

Méndez, the House speaker, filed a resolution on Thursday to create the position of lieutenant governor, a running mate whose name would appear on the ballot in future elections and who would be directly accountable to voters. Some senators are considering a similar action, Ríos said last week.

With legislative leaders promising to take up measures to combat graft once their session resumes next month, Ríos struck a note of caution in allowing the executive branch to appear to be stained by real or perceived corruption with any new nomination.

He cited the case of former Gov. Aníbal Acevedo Vila, who ran for a second term in 2008 after being accused of corruption. Acevedo, a member of the Popular Democratic Party, which supports maintaining Puerto Rico’s status as a U.S. commonwealth, ultimately beat the charges but lost his campaign for re-election.

The rival New Progressive Party cannot afford to run a similarly tainted candidate for governor in 2020, Ríos said. “We preached that we were different.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/25/us/puerto-rico-rossello-vazquez-succession.html" id="4e0891ab-64ce-3bc1-acf0-0e74ee7646dd">The New York Times</a>.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Puerto Rico’s political crisis, which prompted the first resignation of an elected governor in the island’s history, entered a new phase on Thursday as leaders of the ruling New Progressive Party maneuvered to determine who would hold the governorship after Ricardo A. Rosselló steps down.

Puerto Rico's Governor Is Going, but the Protesters Are Staying Put

Now the governor himself, Rosselló lives in the same colonial fortress of his youth, with a family of his own. But the estate had turned into a cage, guarded by police officers in riot gear and ringed by protesters who wanted him gone.

After days of escalating protests, Rosselló has announced that he is resigning from office, an unprecedented step in Puerto Rico’s history that brings a promising political career, for now, to a disgraceful end. “My only north has been the transformation of this island and the well-being of our people,” he wrote in a resignation letter made public Thursday, the morning after a late-night, online address to the public.

It took just two weeks for his administration to reach the point of collapse, undermined by a popular uprising that the governor initially thought he could withstand. Yet Rosselló misread the anger brewing among his people after years of economic stagnation and broken promises.

He also may have overestimated his ability to swiftly combat problems that had been brewing in Puerto Rico for decades. As a candidate, he promised sweeping change to lift the island out of its extended economic slump. But he was forced to contend with a federal oversight board that imposed austerity measures which, coupled with the governor’s move to privatize the publicly owned power utility, sowed deep public discontent. The poor response to a devastating hurricane that struck the island in 2017 only added to the accumulated frustrations that helped turn people against a governor who was increasingly seen as a golden boy, both isolated and privileged.

On Thursday, Rosselló’s successor remained unclear, as powerful politicians displeased with the idea of elevating the secretary of justice who is next in command negotiated behind close doors on a potential alternative candidate. Before leaving office next week, the outgoing governor would have to nominate that person to be his secretary of state — meaning the question of who governs Puerto Rico could be up to Rosselló.

After spending much of his political career dogged by accusations that his success came through the network of political influence he inherited from his father, Rosselló wound up the victim of a crisis of his own making. Shunning party elders, the governor, a notorious workaholic, surrounded himself with a tight-knit cluster of young, influential friends, and the arrogant, frat-style bantering they shared at the expense of those outside their circle became his undoing.

The governor’s troubles came after the publication of hundreds of pages of a leaked private group chat on the messaging app Telegram, an embarrassing development that under different conditions might have been survivable in modern politics. The chat lifted a curtain on Rosselló’s private personality, and many Puerto Ricans did not like what they saw.

But the cliquish chat mirrored Rosselló’s style of governing, depending on an insular group of associates who rejected the advice of outsiders, many of whom said they watched from afar as the administration got deeper and deeper into trouble. He caught flak for having a $245,000 Chevrolet Suburban and spending the brutal days after Hurricane Maria in 2017 at the air-conditioned emergency operations center.

“Ricky loved the limelight,” recalled Yosem E. Companys, a former business partner and mentor to Rosselló. “And he especially loved that people would ingratiate themselves with him. He loved being surrounded by yes men.”

With crisis enveloping his administration, the governor found himself increasingly isolated, having lost support from the public, the leaders of his political party and many of his own aides, who tendered their resignations and left Rosselló, 40, almost completely alone.

“It was impossible to govern like that,” said Antonio Sagardía, Puerto Rico’s former justice secretary.

Sagardía said he spoke to Rosselló on Tuesday and told him that he had no choice but to step down as governor after Puerto Rico’s Justice Department issued search warrants for cellphones belonging to Rosselló and 11 of his current and former aides as part of a criminal investigation into the private group chat.

In his resignation letter, Rosselló noted that the island under his administration saw its highest economic growth in a decade, and the lowest unemployment rate ever, although experts say the growth mainly came from hurricane recovery spending. Unemployment dropped because so many people fled after the hurricane, some analysts noted.

The leaked messages, in addition to being rude and profane, suggested the administration was inappropriately favoring its politically connected friends, just days after federal authorities had arrested two former top officials and four other people in a corruption investigation.

For people who thought they knew Rosselló, reading his crude comments introduced them to a side of him that he appeared to have shown only to his male buddies.

“He was very respectful, always very kind, very much a gentleman,” said Rep. Jenniffer González-Colón, Puerto Rico’s nonvoting resident commissioner in Congress, who publicly demanded Rosselló’s resignation last Friday. “It was two completely different personalities.”

When he ran in 2016, Rosselló’s résumé seemed sterling for a first-time candidate with far-reaching family connections in politics: Tennis player at MIT. Doctorate in biomedical engineering at Michigan. Postdoctorate research at Duke.

González-Colón and Sagardía described Rosselló as a methodical and tireless worker once he was elected. He slept little and liked to draw his own graphs and charts — sometimes with pens in various colors that he carried in his pocket. He was known for working late into the night and then waking at 4 a.m. to go running in Old San Juan — where he was sometimes spotted sending messages even while jogging along the cobblestone streets.

“He is very organized, the way doctors and scientists are,” said Sagardía, who has known Rosselló since he was a teenager. “We are not talking about just anybody.”

But Rosselló packed his team with trusted friends who in many cases had as little experience in government as he did. Elders from his New Progressive Party, which supports Puerto Rican statehood, felt that Rosselló gave some of them a cold shoulder, refusing to ask or take their advice.

“I think this is an unfortunate combination of a group of people that may have been hardworking and well-intentioned but were inexperienced, and there was a lot of arrogance around,” said Luis G. Fortuño, a former New Progressive governor who was not friendly with Rosselló.

Rosselló acted like his own chief of staff, concentrating power in his office and walling himself off with his close advisers and no one else, Fortuño said. “There seemed to be a bunkerization of that inner circle: You were either with them or against them.”

Fortuño said that he met last year with the governor’s former chief of staff, Raúl Maldonado, and told him that rumors were circulating that some of the people in the governor’s inner orbit “were not necessarily acting according to the law.”

Maldonado, who was among those in the Telegram chat, later became the treasury secretary and publicly denounced what he said was corruption within the administration. He was fired, it seemed, for his disloyalty.

Companys, Rosselló’s former mentor, recalled Rosselló’s wedding in 2008, seven years before he ran for governor. He had invited his closest friends to suburban Detroit for the wedding to his first wife. It was a festive affair that drew from the emerging top ranks of Puerto Rican politics — and the groom and his friends joked about which positions they would someday assume in Rosselló’s administration.

Companys gave Rosselló his first job in politics at the behest of Pedro J. Rosselló, Ricardo’s father and the former governor, who had himself been a mentor to Companys. In 2004, Companys ran the Latino campaign for Wesley Clark, a Democratic presidential hopeful, and brought on an eager Rosselló to help in Arizona.

“Pedro told me, ‘Listen, I don’t want my son in politics — I just think it’s dirty business and I don’t want my family to be hurt any further — but he’s very persistent,’” Companys recalled.

A few years after the campaign, Rosselló approached Companys, who was then a doctoral student at Stanford, to join forces on a Silicon Valley startup.

Rosselló and Companys settled on an idea to develop real-time political polling software under a firm they named Bullitics. When Companys mentioned that they would need a significant amount of money to get started, Rosselló told him not to worry, he had sufficient resources.

The startup went nowhere, and people Companys had brought into the venture didn’t get paid, he said.

Companys said he covered some of Rosselló’s debt with money of his own, and then declared bankruptcy.

“He lives in a bubble,” Companys said of Rosselló. “That’s just the way that his entire life has been.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/25/us/puerto-rico-rossello-profile.html" id="d47936e0-e447-3186-a497-15ad5179bb40">The New York Times</a>.

Puerto Rico Governor Misread Anger Brewing Against Him

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — The people of Puerto Rico knew him first as Ricky, the handsome boy who moved into the governor’s residence when he was just 13. His father was the governor, and Ricardo A. Rosselló grew up as a child of privilege in historic La Fortaleza, a palatial 16th-century mansion with heavy drapes and thick wooden doors just steps from San Juan Bay.

Now the governor himself, Rosselló lives in the same colonial fortress of his youth, with a family of his own. But the estate has turned into a cage, guarded by police officers in riot gear and ringed by protesters who want him gone.

Rosselló announced Wednesday that he was resigning from office, an unprecedented step in Puerto Rico’s history that brings a promising political career, for now, to a disgraceful end.

After spending much of his political career dogged by accusations of being a golden boy whose success came through the network of political influence he inherited from his father, Rosselló wound up the victim of a crisis of his own making. Shunning party elders, he surrounded himself with a tight-knit cluster of young, influential friends, and the arrogant, frat-style bantering they shared at the expense of those outside their circle became his undoing.

The governor’s troubles came after the publication of hundreds of pages of a leaked private group chat on the messaging app Telegram, an embarrassing development that under different conditions might have been survivable in modern politics.

“You had an isolated governor, whose Cabinet is resigning, with the mayors of his party asking him to resign, and with the people on the street asking him to resign,” said Antonio Sagardía, Puerto Rico’s former justice secretary. “It was impossible to govern like that.”

González-Colón and Sagardía described Rosselló as a methodical and tireless worker once he was elected. He slept little and liked to draw his own graphs and charts — sometimes with pens in various colors that he carried in his pocket.

Among the guests was Elías Sánchez, who became a powerful lobbyist during Rosselló’s administration and was one of the chat participants. At the Michigan wedding, according to Companys, Sánchez held court under a gazebo and, re-enacting a scene from “The Godfather,” symbolically gave Rosselló and his bride his blessing. (The couple divorced a year later.)

The elder Rosselló did not want his son to follow in his footsteps, Companys said.

The startup went nowhere, and people Companys had brought into the venture didn’t get paid, he said. Cameron Brown, who had hired developers to write Rosselló’s software code, said Rosselló sent some initial payments, “but he basically stiffed me.”

Almost 10 years later, Brown said he received some payments from Rosselló in 2017 and 2018, after Rosselló had become governor.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — The people of Puerto Rico knew him first as Ricky, the handsome boy who moved into the governor’s residence when he was just 13. His father was the governor, and Ricardo A. Rosselló grew up as a child of privilege in historic La Fortaleza, a palatial 16th-century mansion with heavy drapes and thick wooden doors just steps from the Caribbean Sea.

In a statement posted online late Wednesday, Rosselló, 40, said he would step down Aug. 2.

He said his successor for the moment would be the secretary of justice, Wanda Vázquez, a former district attorney who once headed the island’s office of women’s affairs. Vázquez was next in line under the commonwealth’s constitution because the secretary of state, who would have succeeded Rosselló as governor, resigned last week when he was caught up in the chat scandal that enveloped the administration.

But the governor appeared to leave open the possibility that a different successor could be in place by the time he steps down.

Rosselló’s ouster by popular demand meant more to Puerto Ricans than a rejection of his administration. It amounted to a repudiation of decades of mismanagement and decline that everyday people blamed on politicians in San Juan and Washington.

Hundreds of protesters outside La Fortaleza, the governor’s official residence, suddenly went silent Wednesday night when Rosselló statement began to air after hours of delay, with groups huddled around cellphones to listen. The crowd, shouting, grew restless as the 14-minute statement dragged on, but it burst into thunderous applause the moment he announced he would resign. Puerto Rican flags shot into the air and the drumbeats began, to chants of “¡Oé! ¡Oé ¡Oé!”

The governor’s announcement came only hours after the leader of the Puerto Rico House, Carlos Méndez Núñez, said lawmakers were planning to convene impeachment proceedings Thursday. He said there were sufficient votes to oust the governor.

Rosselló’s downfall followed more than a week of public protests demanding his exit.

The demonstrations were touched off by a leaked private group chat on the messaging app Telegram that revealed crude conversations among Rosselló and his closest advisers — and pointed to possible wrongdoing within their circle. Coupled with the recent arrests of six people, including two former top officials, on federal corruption charges, the hundreds of leaked pages ignited public outrage.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/24/us/rossello-puerto-rico-governor-resigns.html" id="df44a76b-df9c-350d-ae34-e095eb502797">The New York Times</a>.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Gov. Ricardo Rosselló of Puerto Rico announced his resignation Wednesday, conceding that he could no longer credibly remain in power after an extraordinary popular uprising and looming impeachment proceedings derailed his administration.

Puerto Rico's Governor Announces Resignation After Uprising

His ouster by popular demand meant more to Puerto Ricans than a rejection of Rosselló’s administration. It amounted to a resounding repudiation of decades of mismanagement and decline that everyday people blamed on politicians in San Juan and Washington.

Rosselló began his announcement by citing some of the accomplishments of his administration, including passing a balanced budget with no layoffs of public employees, fighting corruption, establishing economic growth and lowering taxes. “We raised the salary of teachers in the middle of a bankruptcy,” he said.

“I was willing to face any challenge, fully understanding that I would prevail against any accusation or process,” Rosselló said. But he said he had “heard the demand of the people,” and was convinced that continuing as governor “would endanger the successes we have achieved.”

He added: “I hope this decision serves as a call to citizen reconciliation.”

Hundreds of protesters outside La Fortaleza, the governor’s official residence, suddenly went silent Wednesday night when the message began to air after hours of delay, with groups huddled around cellphones to listen. The crowd, shouting, grew restless as the 14-minute statement dragged on, but it burst into thunderous applause the moment he announced he would resign. Puerto Rican flags shot into the air and the drumbeats began, to chants of “¡Oé! ¡Oé ¡Oé!”

“I’m overjoyed. We did it, we did it,” said Meralys Lebrón, 28, as she danced with friends to the beat of the drums. “This matters to everyone in Puerto Rico. He showed us he was not the leader we need right now.”

“This is historic. Absolutely historic,” said Aixa González, 28. “I have never seen anything like this, and I can’t even put it into words. This is what he gets, this is justice.”

In a statement, Vázquez said the governor had “made the right decision, for the good of both his family and for Puerto Rico.”

She said she would be working with Rosselló on a transition process and appeared to leave open the possibility that someone else could eventually be named governor. She said she would be ready to assume the post once Rosselló steps down Aug. 2, “if necessary.”

Appointment and confirmation of a new secretary of state could mean that person might also be tapped to succeed Rosselló.

Rosselló is the first chief executive to step down during a term since Puerto Ricans started electing their governors in 1947. Until earlier this week, he had been expected to seek reelection in 2020.

Rosselló’s remarkable downfall followed more than a week of fervent public protests demanding his exit and a day of anxious anticipation in Wednesday. He had been expected to step down in the morning, but the announcement dragged on for hours amid a frenzy of rumors and speculation.

The demonstrations were touched off by a leaked private group chat on the messaging app Telegram that revealed crude conversations among Rosselló and his closest advisers — and pointed to possible wrongdoing within their circle. Coupled with the recent arrests of six people, including two former top officials, on federal corruption charges, the hundreds of leaked pages ignited public outrage against the governor, whom protesters derided in rhythmic chants as “Ricky.”

Even as the governor dug in his heels, it became increasingly difficult for him to hang on. Both his chief of staff and the person in charge of the island’s Federal Affairs Administration in Washington resigned Tuesday. The chief of staff said he could no longer take threats directed at his family, and the Washington representative said the latest developments were contrary to his principles.

Hours later, a top donor to the party posted a letter on Twitter asking Rosselló to resign.

The governor and his wife tried furiously through the week to give the impression that it was business as usual: The first lady posted online photographs of her visit to a women’s shelter Monday, only to have the shelter directors come out publicly the next day and ask her to take the pictures down. The governor posted photos of staff meetings, as protesters rallied angrily in the streets.

The scandal took on potential criminal overtones Tuesday when the Puerto Rico Department of Justice confirmed that search warrants had been executed seizing the cellphones of several people who participated in the chat.

The Puerto Rico Bar Association issued a report suggesting that seven potential crimes had been revealed in the chat, including an implied threat against the mayor of San Juan, Carmen Yulín Cruz, as well as possible instances of diversion of funds, conspiracy, disclosure of private information and intention to terminate employment based on political beliefs.

But the clamor in the streets went deeper than the chat: Puerto Ricans said they had had enough after years of financial mismanagement and the poor government response to Hurricane Maria, which ravaged Puerto Rico, a U.S. commonwealth, nine months after Rosselló took office in 2017. The government initially played down the death toll but was later forced to admit that an estimated 3,000 people had died.

In the chat, one of Rosselló’s aides joked about using the overflow of bodies at the island’s morgues as bait for the administration’s foes: “Don’t we have some cadavers to feed our crows?”

Anger at such tone-deaf exchanges united Puerto Ricans of all stripes, including many who had never protested before. Popular musicians rallied millions of fans on social media. The artists known as Residente, iLe and Bad Bunny produced a protest song, “Afilando los Cuchillos” (Sharpening the Knives), that became a street anthem. Hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans escalated the uprising Monday by shutting down a major highway in San Juan.

“We’re sick of the corruption, of the abuse,” said Misael Correa Robles, 26, a college student from Carolina, Puerto Rico, who attended the protests. “It’s been decades of this.”

On Wednesday morning, the walls of Calle Fortaleza, the street leading to the governor’s residence, were covered with political graffiti that read like a wish list: “The Day After the Resignation: Celebrate! End the Junta. Total Transparency. Investigate the Criminals.”

Protesters had gathered Tuesday night outside the mansion to listen to a public reading of the Puerto Rican Constitution, cheering, chanting and dancing to the steady beat of snare drums. Those who did not have drums banged on pots and pans.

Alejandro Santiago Calderón, 30, said that the release of the text exchanges confirmed what many Puerto Ricans had suspected about the governor and his political allies — that they had disdain for the public. Like many others, he said the governor’s resignation would not be enough to quell his sense that the island’s political establishment needed to be shaken up.

“This has to change, and it has to change from the top all the way to the bottom,” he said.

The stunning events that led to Rosselló’s ouster felt like a turning point after Puerto Ricans had endured years of economic pain. A recession on the island has lasted more than a decade. Hundreds of thousands of people have left. A debt crisis has bankrupted the government. Congress placed Puerto Rico’s finances under the control of a federal board. Then came the hurricane. Some people were without electricity for almost a year afterward.

When the protests erupted, both in San Juan and in mainland cities that are home to members of the vast Puerto Rican diaspora, the governor resisted relinquishing his position. He said he had acted inappropriately but not unlawfully in the group chat, and he vowed to finish his term, which runs through 2020.

But as crowds continued to gather outside his official residence and as the unrest spread to other parts of the island, leaders from San Juan to Washington abandoned Rosselló. He was left to choose between resigning and facing a lengthy and embarrassing impeachment, orchestrated by his own New Progressive Party.

Rosselló tried to buy time by announcing Sunday that he would not seek reelection and that he would step down as president of his party. All that did, however, was intensify the resolve of the people on the streets, who insisted that only his resignation would suffice.

Calls for the governor’s resignation came from all corners of the island and from Washington, where Republican and Democratic lawmakers said Rosselló had lost so much credibility that Congress might be less likely to disburse important federal aid to Puerto Rico.

(Puerto Rico’s political parties do not neatly align with those on the mainland. Rosselló is a Democrat in national politics, although many members of the island’s New Progressive Party are Republicans.)

On Monday, El Nuevo Día, Puerto Rico’s largest newspaper, ran a front-page editorial with the headline, “Governor, it’s time to listen to the people: You must resign.”

Rosselló’s departure appeared to end a political dynasty in Puerto Rico. His father, Pedro Rosselló, was governor from 1993 through 2000. Corruption scandals plagued the elder Rosselló’s administration. The scandals did not force him to resign, but they did appear to keep him from winning a third term. The elder Rosselló resigned from the New Progressive Party two days before his son resigned his post.

He said his successor for the moment would be the secretary of justice, Wanda Vázquez, a former district attorney who once headed the island’s office of women’s affairs. Vázquez was next in line under the territory’s constitution after the secretary of state, who would have succeeded as governor, resigned last week when he also was caught up in the chat scandal that enveloped Rosselló’s administration.

San Juan, the capital, which had seen protesters arrive on foot, on horseback and even on motorized water scooters over the past week, burst into celebration after Rosselló’s announcement. People cheered outside La Fortaleza, the governor’s official residence. They banged drums, tambourines and kitchen pots, not in anger but in revelry. “We’re not a small group. We’re Puerto Rico!” they chanted.

The governor began his announcement by citing some of the accomplishments of his administration, including passing a balanced budget with no layoffs of public employees, fighting corruption, establishing economic growth and lowering taxes. “We raised the salary of teachers in the middle of a bankruptcy,” he said.

“The results are what most matter, and they are favorable results in the worst scenario imaginable,” he said.

The announcement came not long after the leader of the Puerto Rico House, Carlos Méndez Núñez, said lawmakers were planning to convene impeachment proceedings Thursday. He said there were sufficient votes to oust the governor.

Rosselló is the first chief executive to step down during a term since Puerto Ricans started electing their governors in 1947. He had been expected to seek reelection in 2020.

Rosselló’s extraordinary downfall followed more than a week of fervent public protests demanding his exit.

Puerto Rico’s House of Representatives asked a panel of jurists to review if the legal grounds for impeachment existed. The Senate was said to have enough votes to oust the governor.

The governor and his wife tried furiously through the week to give the impression that it was business as usual: The first lady posted online photographs of her visit to a woman’s shelter Monday, only to have the shelter directors come out publicly the next day and ask her to take the pictures down. The governor posted photos of staff meetings, as protesters rallied angrily in the streets.

But the clamor in the streets went deeper than the chat: Puerto Ricans said they had had enough after years of financial mismanagement and the poor government response to Hurricane Maria, which ravaged Puerto Rico, a U.S. commonwealth, nine months after Rosselló took office in 2017. The government estimated that nearly 3,000 people died.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Gov. Ricardo Rosselló of Puerto Rico announced his resignation Wednesday, conceding that he could no longer credibly remain in power after an extraordinary popular uprising and looming impeachment proceedings had derailed his administration.

Late in the afternoon, his spokesman said Rosselló would address the Puerto Rican people by the end of the day. But not a word had been heard from the governor as night fell.

The frenzied rumors about when, where and whether Rosselló would announce his departure paralyzed Puerto Rico’s government at both ends of colonial Old San Juan. At the Capitol, lawmakers announced for the first time that impeachment proceedings against the governor had begun. At the governor’s official residence, hundreds of protesters milled outside throughout the day, celebrating even in advance of the official announcement.

They banged drums, tambourines and kitchen pots — in anger, but also in expectant revelry.

“We’re not a small group,” they chanted. “We’re Puerto Rico!”

But as the night wore on, and there was still no sign of a statement from the governor, the mood in the crowd turned darker. The jubilant family atmosphere that had prevailed earlier in the day gave way to crowds of young people roaming the crowded streets, drinking and shouting. “Resign, assassin!” some of them yelled periodically.

The speaker of Puerto Rico’s House of Representatives, Carlos J. Méndez Núñez, said Wednesday night that Rosselló had broken a pledge with lawmakers from his party to offer a resignation statement by 5 p.m. As a result, he said, the legislative assembly was planning a special session Thursday to formally initiate impeachment proceedings. He said there were sufficient votes to oust the governor.

Rosselló would be the first chief executive to step down during a term since Puerto Ricans started electing their governors in 1947. Before the political crisis began, he was expected to seek reelection in 2020.

The crisis surrounding the governor has followed more than a week of fervent public protests demanding his exit. The demonstrations were touched off by a leaked private group chat on the messaging app Telegram that revealed crude conversations among Rosselló and his closest advisers — and pointed to possible wrongdoing within their circle.

Coupled with the recent arrests of six people, including two former top officials, on federal corruption charges, the hundreds of leaked pages ignited public outrage against the governor, whom protesters derided in rhythmic chants as “Ricky.”

Even as the governor has dug in his heels, it has become increasingly difficult for him to hang on. Both his chief of staff and the person in charge of the island’s Federal Affairs Administration in Washington resigned Tuesday. The chief of staff said he could no longer take threats directed at his family, and the Washington aide said the latest developments were contrary to his principles.

Hours later, a top donor to the governor’s political party posted a letter on Twitter asking Rosselló to resign.

Earlier this week, the governor and his wife tried furiously to give the impression that it was business as usual. The first lady posted photographs online of her visit to a woman’s shelter Monday, only to have the shelter directors come out publicly the next day and ask her to take the pictures down. The governor posted photos of staff meetings while protesters rallied angrily in the streets.

By Tuesday, though, the governor and his remaining aides were out of sight, hunkered down in the governor’s official residence, La Fortaleza, or elsewhere. Rosselló’s whereabouts have been somewhat of a mystery in recent days.

The Puerto Rico Bar Association issued a report suggesting that seven potential crimes had been revealed in the chat, including an implied threat against the mayor of San Juan, Carmen Yulín Cruz, as well as possible instances of diversion of funds, conspiracy, improper disclosure of private information and intention to terminate employment based on political beliefs.

But the clamor in the streets reflected grievances that went deeper than the chat. Puerto Ricans said they had enough after years of financial mismanagement and the poor government response to Hurricane Maria, which ravaged Puerto Rico, a United States commonwealth, nine months after Rosselló took office in 2017. The government estimated that nearly 3,000 people died.

Anger at such tone-deaf exchanges united Puerto Ricans of all stripes, including many who had never protested before. Popular musicians rallied millions of fans on social media. The artists known as Residente, iLe and Bad Bunny produced a protest song, “Afilando los Cuchillos” (Sharpening the Knives), that became a street anthem. Hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans escalated the uprising on Monday by shutting down a major highway in San Juan.

On Wednesday morning, the walls of Calle Fortaleza, the street leading to the governor’s official residence, were blanketed with political graffiti that read like a wish list: “The Day After the Resignation: Celebrate! End the Junta. Total Transparency. Investigate the Criminals.”

Alejandro Santiago Calderón, 30, said that the leaked Telegram messages confirmed what many Puerto Ricans had suspected about the governor and his political allies — that they had disdain for the public. Like many others, he said the governor’s potential resignation would not be enough to quell his sense that the island’s political establishment needed to be shaken up.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — An anxious sense of expectation gripped Puerto Rico on Wednesday as Gov. Ricardo A. Rosselló kept his people guessing — and waiting for hours — for what appeared to be his imminent resignation.

Patricia Mazzei and Frances Robles

Articles written by the author

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