Waving flags, chanting and banging pots and pans, tens of thousands of Puerto Ricans filled a central expressway Monday to demand the resignation of their governor in what appeared to be the largest protest on the island in nearly two decades.
Puerto Rican singer Ricky Martin, front atop truck, participates with other local celebrities in a protest demanding the resignation of governor Ricardo Rossello in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Monday, July 22, 2019. Protesters are demanding Rossello step down for his involvement in a private chat in which he used profanities to describe an ex-New York City councilwoman and a federal control board overseeing the island's finance.
The leak has intensified long-smoldering anger in the U.S. territory over persistent corruption and mismanagement by the island’s two main political parties, a severe debt crisis, a sickly economy and a slow recovery from Maria, which devastated Puerto Rico in September 2017. “This is to show that the people respect themselves,” said Ana Carrasquillo, 26. “We’ve put up with corruption for so many years.”
Thousands of Puerto Rican demonstrators arrived from across the island Monday for what many expected to be one of the biggest protests ever seen in the U.S. territory, with irate islanders pledging to drive Gov. Ricardo Rosselló from office. Asked whether the governor should step down, President Donald Trump said that Rosselló is a “terrible” governor and that hurricane relief money sent to Puerto Rico has been “squandered, wasted and stolen” and the island’s top leadership is “totally, grossly incompetent.”
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