Decision expected regarding Puerto Rico senator's political future
|
| Published on Thursday, September 4, 2008 |
Email To Friend Print Version |
By María Miranda Sierra
Caribbean Net News Puerto Rico Correspondent
Email: miranda@caribbeannetnews.com
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico: A week after Puerto Rico's New Progressive Party President Luis Fortuño asked NPP Sen. Jorge De Castro de Font to step down from his post and resign from his candidacy for re-election, a Conciliation Committee was created to make a recommendation to the party’s Governing Board regarding whether the lawmaker should be booted out of the party for “verbally attacking” the party’s president.
The committee, which expected De Castro Font to show up on Tuesday to give his side of the story, waited until 7 p.m., but the NPP senator never showed up saying his attorneys are away from the island.
“The senator never showed up,” said NPP spokeswoman Wilmelis Márquez.
“The committee is working on the recommendation they will be giving the Governing Board,” Marquéz added.
The committee is making a decision regarding a complaint filed by NPP senatorial candidate and former NPP Electoral Commissioner Thomas Rivera Schatz after De Castro Font verbally attacked Fortuño when asked to step down from his post and resign from running for re-election after federal authorities searched his home, his office at the Capitol and a gas station.
De Castro Font excused himself from attending the meeting stating that he wasn’t ready to attend until Friday as some of his attorney’s are currently off the island.
“I already told them that I won’t be ready until Friday, and I reaffirm that on Friday I will be prepared with my lawyers present. Anything they do after receiving my letter (excusing myself from the meeting) is part of a vicious process,” De Castro Font said.
The letter requesting De Castro Font to attend the meeting stated that if the NPP senator failed to attend “the committee would make a decision regarding the complaint filed by Rivera Schatz and would proceed as needed to resolve the issue.”
De Castro Font sent his secretary early Tuesday morning to NPP headquarters to turn in his letter stating the reasons why he would not be able to attend and would not be legally ready until Friday.
“Taking in account the late notification (to attend the meeting) and the fact that my legal representatives are not in Puerto Rico, I am not prepared to participate in the hearing until September 5 at 10 a.m.,” De Castro Font stated in his letter to the committee.
NPP Conciliation Committee President Luis Felipe Navas said that the senator’s arguments are no viable as this has been the third time he has been called to attend the hearing and on all occasions he has failed to make an appearance.
The day, De Castro Font has said that he will be ready to appear at the hearing, ironically is the last the NPP has to notify the State Election Commissions of any changes that need to made to the party’s electoral ballots. If the NPP doesn’t make a decision sooner that Friday, then De Castro Font’s name will appear in the NPP senatorial ballots.
De Castro Font has insisted that the only way his name won’t appear in the NPP ballot is if he dies or voluntarily steps down from running for re-election.
“Any action this leadership takes to avoid the due process of law and the rights that I have…I will do to them the same I did to the past NPP leadership,” De Castro Font said referring to differences he had in the past with former Governor and NPP President Pedro Rosselló who ousted De Castro Font from the party and he took the matter to courts where a judge ruled that his expulsion was illegal and had to be re-admitted as an NPP lawmaker.
NPP Secretary General Hugo Pérez said that if the Conciliation Committee makes a decision on Tuesday on the complaint filed by Rivera Schatz against De Castro Font, that decision will not be known until Wednesday because it would need to be approved by the NPP Governing Board.
“When they make a decision, they will notify me so I can refer their determination to the Governing Board,” Pérez said.
Pérez added that Governing Board won’t have to hold a meeting regarding the Conciliation Committee determination, because all 40 members can hold a “referendum” via telephone.
Pérez said that he does however expect De Castro Font to show up on Friday to fight the complaint placed against him.
The Conciliation Committee met all day Tuesday, behind closed doors, and were expected to make a final determination regarding the complaint filed by Rivera Schatz after De Castro Font began to question how Fortuño and his wife Lucé Vela generate their income. In fact, De Castro Font said that he is conducting his own investigation on Fortuño and his wife’s economic resources to see if there are any “irregularites.”
The NPP senator made his comments after Fortuño asked him to step down from his post and not run for re-election.
De Castro Font said that he will not step down from his post or not run for re-election because under law he is presumed innocent until proven guilty.
Last week, federal authorities stormed into De Castro Font’s office, home and a gas station, confiscating computers, documents, trash bags, two brief cases and other items. Even though he had said a few weeks ago that if he became a target of a federal probe, he would step down from his post, at a news conference at his office at the Capitol last week, De Castro Font said that will finish his term in the Puerto Rico Senate and that his name will appear in the 2008 NPP electoral ballot.
“I welcome any federal investigation and I trust that this will end soon with a recovery of our persona,” De Castro Font said at the time.
“There are no existing charges against me hence it’s premature to make a decision on my candidacy for the November elections…They will find nothing in my work as a senator that is illegal, irregular or ill disposed,” De Castro Font said.
“I am recommending for the speculations to be set aside until the panorama is cleared up,” he added.
De Castro Font said that Fortuño’s call, asking him to step down from his post and from running in the upcoming elections, was premature and precipitated.
“I respect our [party] president’s decisions, although I don’t feel the same way,” De Castro Font said. | | | | Reads : 107 |
|
