Puerto Rico’s Democratic Party (PDPR) Sunday praised the celebration of a status plebiscite on November 3 and urged the voters of Puerto Rico to vote for statehood.
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The plebiscite, called Final Definition of the Political Status of Puerto Rico, will take place on the same day as the U.S. presidential election. It seeks to request the admission of the country as a state of the Union and to change the island’s “oldest colony in the world” status.
According to PDPR President Charlie Rodriguez, the plebiscite is a legitimate and valid democratic method to exercise the right to self-determination of the country’s citizens.
“The current territorial status has contributed substantially to the economic depression in Puerto Rico, and it's something that has endured over the last decade,” Rodriguez said.
“This has created uncertainty, a short-term approach to economic policy, and ideology of dependence on special treatment from the United States, and the absence of firm bases for sustained economic development," he added.
In this regard, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has said that statehood would be the most effective way to ensure that citizens of Puerto Rico are treated equally, with the same level of representation at the federal level.
Early October Puerto Rico's Supreme Court approved the celebration of the plebiscite. The vote will be the third of its kind in the country after Puerto Rican citizens went to the polls in 2012 and 2017 to also decide whether or not to annex the U.S.