Former Puerto Rico Governor Carlos Romero-Barceló to Retire from Politics

With a sorrowful heart and mixed feelings over his defeat in Sunday’s primaries, Carlos Romero-Barceló, the veteran of a thousand campaigns with the [pro-statehood] New Progressive Party (PNP), decided not to seek elective office anymore and not to get actively involved in the 2004 election campaign.

The former Governor granted EL VOCERO an exclusive interview even before returning calls from Pedro Rosselló, his party’s candidate for Governor, and at a time when the island was eager to know his reaction to the undisputable victory of his (Romero’s) opponent Luis Fortuño.

A peaceful but reflective Romero replied without hesitation to the question of whether he is retiring from politics. “Yes. It’s definite. I had never said that before. Beginning today (yesterday), I disassociate myself from political-electoral bouts,” Romero stated without a wink.

Facing the opinion by many that, based on his spirit, it is hard to believe that the man who has been aspiring for elective positions for almost four decades is willing to retire, he responded: “This is not a matter of spirit. This is a matter of reality, and I have a lot of support in my party, but the majority in my party has said ‘no’ to me,” Romero maintained.

In Sunday’s primaries, Romero was not able to overcome in terms of votes a political novice [such as] Fortuño for the PNP nomination for Resident Commissioner [in Washington], a position he occupied for two four-year terms. Up until yesterday, Fortuño had received 61% of the votes, while Romero barely received 26%.

However, he expressed having no resentment over the “no” from PNP members. “Resentment, no. That I accept it without sorrow? No. With sorrow inside of me? Yes. Sorrow and resentment are two different things,” he stated.

Romero, who popularized the phrase “Defeat? What defeat?” after the 1984 elections when he lost [in his bid for a third term as Governor] to [former Governor and Popular Democratic Party (PPD) candidate] Rafael Hernández-Colón, assumed a “the-majority-rules” attitude over Sunday’s decision.

“The majority rules and the majority may be wrong once in a while, but, in the long run, decisions by the majority are better than decisions by the minority, regardless of how enlightened or intelligent they may appear,” [Romero] indicated.

He waited for the numbers at his son Andrés’ house, where a few tears were shed as the results became known. [Romero] maintains that he did not cry.

“Some people’s eyes got watery because some are more emotional than others. My own eyes get watery when I witness a heroic act or something stimulating, but not over something sad. My father was a Spartan, and the discipline he gave me was that men don’t cry. My eyes rarely tear in sorrow. That does not mean that I feel sorrow inside,” Romero stated.

Now that something no one dared to bet upon has happened, Romero is now ready to analyze what role he will assume within the PNP. Asked on the possibility of assuming a patriarchal role, he replied: “That depends on the PNP. No one can assume the role of advisor, counselor, or patriarch if the organization shows no interest. My future will depend on developments,” he said.

“I am analyzing what are the perspectives and what I am going to do with my life. I am not going to stop working and fighting for statehood. I must consider that I feel grateful for the support I have been given all these years, the recognition for the work done, but the results of the election show that I must yield to someone else and that is a reality I must see,” he indicated.

Getting involved in campaigns is not within his plans either. “I don’t see it at this moment. Politics is something you cannot say you are going or not going to do, since certain things happen that are not foreseen, unexpected things, but the message is to move over for someone else.....To some people, my presence is but a shadow, and the will of the people has to be followed,” the veteran politician insisted.

Romero will assume more of an advisory role to whomever so requests. “I have no problem helping, especially if [requests] are genuine. I will not help with hypocritical requests,” he stated.

When EL VOCERO asked if he considered hypocritical the request by Fortuño to join his campaign, he indicated that “the least I want to do at this moment is to engage in personalities of any kind.”

With respect to Fortuño, all he said was that he did not expect the wide margin of his victory and that the people sensed that he was Pedro Rosselló’s candidate, given they both had very similar elements in their respective campaigns, beginning with the publicity campaign.

Romero disagreed with the PPD leadership’s opinion that there were irregularities in the primary process.

“The things the PPD makes up make me want to laugh. They try to find a way to discredit primaries that have been the greatest success in terms of [voter] turnout. They dared us to mobilize more than 508,000 voters, and it looks like we reached 600,000,” he said.

[Romero] went as far as stating that the insinuation that voter lists were purged is one typical of the PPD but not of the PNP.

Aside from everything else, Romero maintained that the PNP is facing the 2004 elections with a real chance to win. “The question that you may pose to me is if [PPD candidate for Governor] Aníbal Acevedo-Vilá and [PPD candidate for Resident Commissioner] Roberto Prats have real possibilities of victory. I believe not. Both luck and the people are in our favor,” he indicated.

In order to win, he will refrain from giving public advice. “I have always believed that political advice is given to leaders in private, not in public, because the leader has the option of following or not following it, and if one gives advice in good faith, it is not to put [the leader] in a difficult position,” [Romero further] indicated.

A lawyer by training, 71-year-old Romero is a founding member of the PNP. He served as Mayor of San Juan from 1969 to 1977, Governor from 1977 to 1985, and Resident Commissioner from 1993 to 2001. He attempted to win his party’s nomination for Resident Commissioner in the 2004 general elections. Out of a field of four prospective candidates, however, he came in a distant second in the PNP primary held on November 9.

Romero’s maternal grandfather Antonio R. Barceló was a political leader in Puerto Rico during the early part of the 20th century and one-time mentor to PPD founder and four-term Governor Luis Muñoz-Marín. His mother Josefina, a political leader in her own right, was the first woman to chair a political party in the island.

Romero’s departure from the political scene comes at the heels of PNP founder Luis A. Ferré’s death last month (see http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1007461/posts) and, in effect, ends the influence of the old-guard faction within the party.

Romero's announcement is a significant development in the Puerto Rican political scene. It effectively leaves the PNP (and the statehood movement, for that matter) in the hands of a new generation of leaders, since Romero was the last of the old-guard leaders who go all the way back to the party's founding in 1967. Also, Luis Fortuño is a Republican, while Romero is a Democrat.

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