The Washington Post, September 2024
Mayra Vélez Serrano drove to work Wednesday along Puerto Rico’s Highway 18, one of the island’s busiest freeways. It would’ve been a normal drive — had it not been for a new, giant billboard that left her “absolutely floored,” said the political science professor at University of Puerto Rico at Río Piedras.
There, in Spanish on a black background, was a stark message: “Anyone who votes for the New Progressive Party (PNP), does not love Puerto Rico,” a bold attack on the island’s dominant party since 2017. To Vélez Serrano it encapsulated Puerto Ricans’ long-held frustrations over the island’s two-party political system — one that is threatening to crumble during the Nov. 5 gubernatorial elections.
