Pierluisi spoke shortly after Vázquez said the governor could count on him: “We must all be united to support Puerto Rico going forward.”
Meanwhile, Carlos Delgado, mayor of the northwestern city of Isabela for 20 years, was ready to win by a landslide the nomination of the main opposition Popular Democratic Party. Opposite the defeat were Puerto Rico screenwriter Eduardo Bhatia and San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz, known for their public spasms with US President Donald Trump.
With more than 45% of election colleges reporting, Delgado had received more than 60% of the vote.
The results come one week after delayed and absent votes led to a chaotic primary that forced a second round of voting on Sunday in which thousands of Puerto Ricans were given a second chance to vote for the first time.
Voting centers opened in nearly 50 of the island’s 78 municipalities following a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that a second round of voting would take place at centers that never opened on August 9 or did not stay the required eight hours .
The opening of at least one polling station in the northern coastal city of Loíza was delayed by more than an hour as dozens of voters grumbled about the sleeves standing in the heat with masks over their faces.
“We expected there would be no problems,” said Santiago Jiménez, a 68-year-old retiree, adding that some people were away.
Jannette Ledoux, coordinator for the unit where the polling station was located, told The Associated Press that the problem was a result of four volunteers who stopped last Saturday, delaying the required vote before the doors opened.
Once there was a vote, one elderly woman came up after casting her ballot and shouted at whoever was waiting, “Come! Come on! Let’s vote! Let’s vote!”
But not everyone was able to participate in the second round on Sunday.
The Supreme Court’s ruling left voters like Eldy Correa permanently absent, last Sunday three times after their polling station in the southwest of the city of Cabo Rojo and decided to find out later that it opened late.
“They took away our right to vote,” she said, adding that she was uneasy with the president of the election commission, despite his apology. “Hoesa Sorry? That doesn’t solve anything.”
Puerto Rico’s general election will see a record six candidates running for governor. Among them is Pierluisi, who served less than a week after governor after former Gov. Ricardo Rosselló resigned last year after enormous protests fueled by a conversation with libel. However, the island’s Supreme Court ruled that Vázquez, the former secretary of justice at the time, was next in line to become governor because there was no secretary of state.
