The New Progressive Party is a political party in Puerto Rico that advocates for statehood. The PNP is one of the two major parties in Puerto Rico with significant political strength and currently holds both the seat of the governor and of the resident commissioner.
The governor of Puerto Rico is the head of government of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and commander-in-chief of the Puerto Rico National Guard. Currently, Jenniffer González-Colón is serving as the 190th governor of the archipelago and island.
The Senate of Puerto Rico is the upper house of the Legislative Assembly of Puerto Rico, the territorial legislature of Puerto Rico. The Senate, together with the House of Representatives of Puerto Rico, control the legislative branch of the government of Puerto Rico.
The House of Representatives of Puerto Rico is the lower house of the Legislative Assembly of Puerto Rico, the bicameral territorial legislature of Puerto Rico. The House, together with the Senate, control the legislative branch of the government of Puerto Rico.
Luis Guillermo Fortuño Burset is a Puerto Rican politician who served as the governor of Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the United States, from 2009 to 2013.
Thomas Rivera Schatz is a Puerto Rican politician, legal advisor, attorney, and former prosecutor, who was the fourteenth, sixteenth and is expected to be the eighteenth President of the Senate of Puerto Rico. He is affiliated with New Progressive Party of Puerto Rico and the mainland Republican Party.
General elections were held in Puerto Rico on Tuesday, November 4, 2008, to elect the officials of the government that would serve for the next four years, most notably the Governor of Puerto Rico.
Pedro Rafael Pierluisi Urrutia is a Puerto Rican politician and lawyer who served as the Governor of Puerto Rico from 2021 to 2025, having previously been the de facto governor from August 2–7, 2019. A member of New Progressive and Democratic Parties, he previously served as acting Secretary of State of Puerto Rico in 2019, as Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico from 2009 to 2017, and as Secretary of Justice of Puerto Rico from 1993 to 1997. He was formerly a private attorney for Puerto Rico's fiscal oversight board under the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act.
Manuel A. Torres-Nieves, Puerto Rico's longest-serving secretary of the Senate of Puerto Rico in modern times, first served during the tumultuous years of 2005–2008 in which the Senate was controlled by the pro-statehood New Progressive Party (NPP) while the governorship had been controlled by the pro-status quo Popular Democratic Party, served a second consecutive term as Senate Secretary after having served as Acting President of the Senate from January 1–12, 2009, between the Senate presidencies of Kenneth McClintock and Thomas Rivera Schatz. He then served as Puerto Rico's first Electoral Comptroller before his third election as secretary of the Senate during Rivera Schatz' historic second non-consecutive term as Senate President, which ended January 11, 2021. On March 11, 2021, Governor Pedro Pierluisi nominated him as Comptroller of Puerto Rico, a constitutional role which requires the advice and consent of both the Senate and the House of Representatives.
The political party strength in Puerto Rico has been held by different political parties in the history of Puerto Rico. Today, that strength is primarily held by two parties, namely:
The secretary of state of Puerto Rico leads all efforts promoting the cultural, political, and economical relations between Puerto Rico and jurisdictions within the United States or foreign countries. It was created by Article IV of the Constitution of Puerto Rico, establishing the secretary as acting governor when the governor is unable to perform his duties—a post equivalent to that of a lieutenant governor. As such, the secretary of state is first in line of succession to the governorship of Puerto Rico.
The Electoral Comptroller of Puerto Rico is a post created in Puerto Rico by Law 222 of 2012, charged with the supervision and regulation of political finances for all elective offices in the U.S. territory with the exception of the Resident Commissioner, a federal position regulated by the Federal Elections Commission.
Yesmín M. Valdivieso Galib is the current Comptroller of Puerto Rico. Valdivieso was appointed by Luis Fortuño with advice and consent from the 24th Senate of Puerto Rico and the 28th House of Representatives. Yesmín M. Valdivieso, holds a Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration with a concentration in accounting from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. and the Certified Public Accountant certificate. Prior to working in the Government of Puerto Rico, Valdivieso worked as Senior Tax Manager at the firm of certified public accountants Arthur Andersen & Co. and as Undersecretary of the Puerto Rico Department of Treasury.
Wanda Emilia Vázquez Garced is a Puerto Rican politician and attorney who served as the 188th Governor of Puerto Rico from 2019 to 2021. Prior to her tenure as governor, she served as the 19th Secretary of Justice from 2017 to 2019. A member of the New Progressive Party and Republican Party of Puerto Rico, Vázquez is the second female governor in Puerto Rican history, after Sila María Calderón. She was constitutionally appointed to the office following the resignation of Ricardo Roselló, and the judicial annulation of Pedro Pierluisi's short-lived government, in the aftermath of the Telegramgate Scandal. On August 16, 2020, she failed to secure the New Progressive Party nomination for Governor of Puerto Rico in the 2020 elections, losing to Pedro Pierluisi.
Telegramgate, also known as Chatgate or RickyLeaks, was a political scandal involving Ricardo Rosselló, then Governor of Puerto Rico, which began on July 8, 2019, with the leak of hundreds of pages of a group chat on the messaging application Telegram between Rosselló and members of his cabinet. The messages were considered vulgar, misogynistic, racist, and homophobic toward several individuals and groups, and discussed how they would use the media to target potential political opponents. The leak came in the midst of allegations by former Secretary of Treasury of Puerto Rico, Raúl Maldonado Gautier, that his department boasted an "institutional mafia" that Rosselló was involved in. The leaks also came a year after a previous scandal, dubbed WhatsApp Gate, involving other members of Rosselló's cabinet.
General elections were held in Puerto Rico on November 3, 2020, to elect the officials of the Puerto Rican government who will serve from January 2021 to January 2025, most notably the position of Governor and Resident Commissioner. In addition, there was a non-binding status referendum to ask voters if Puerto Rico should become the 51st state of the Union.
Osvaldo Soto García was Wanda Vazquez's nominee for Comptroller of Puerto Rico until he asked the governor to retire his nomination in September 2020.
Gubernatorial elections were held on Tuesday, November 5, 2024, to elect the governor of Puerto Rico, concurrently with the election of the Resident Commissioner, the Senate, the House of Representatives, and the mayors of the 78 municipalities.
The government of Wanda Vázquez Garced was formed the week following the resignation of Governor Ricardo Rosselló Nevares as a result of the massive protests resulting from the Telegramgate scandal, and a Supreme Court decision that vacated the office from an invalid occupant.
The government of Ricardo Rosselló Nevares was formed in the weeks following the 2016 Puerto Rico gubernatorial election and ended prematurely on the first week of August 2019.
