Sila María Calderón

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Sila María Calderón (2001)

Sila María Calderón Serra de Cantero woman (born September 23, 1942 in San Juan (Puerto Rico) ) is a former governor of Puerto Rico .

biography

In 1973 she was appointed executive assistant by her former professor, Luis Silva Recio, when the latter became minister of labor of Puerto Rico. In 1984, the newly elected Governor Rafael Hernández Colón appointed her special assistant and then in 1985 his chief of staff. In the same year she was first Secretary of the Interior and then in 1988 Secretary of State of Puerto Rico.

In 1996 she was elected mayor of San Juan (Puerto Rico) and later chairwoman of the Popular Democratic Party (PPD). In this capacity she also represented the position of the PPD during the 1998 referendum on remaining in the Commonwealth with the USA against the position of Governor Pedro Juan Rosselló González , who advocated statehood. In fact, the majority of voters voted in favor of the Commonwealth Statute they propagated.

In 2000 she ran for the office of governor herself and promised in her election campaign an end to the corruption and bomb tests of the US Navy on Vieques , an island off the east coast of Puerto Rico that had been used for naval exercises since 1941. Her strong anti-bomb test stance as well as the death of a security officer by a misdirected bomb in 1999 and the exceptionally high cancer rate on Vieques, which many attributed to the bomb tests, won her election.

On January 2, 2001, she was officially sworn in as governor of Puerto Rico and announced that she would soon take steps to end the military use of Vieques Island. On April 24, 2001, she took legal action against the US government under the Noise Control Act of 1972. Although US President George W. Bush immediately refused to stop the exercises, the US government announced in June 2001 a permanent cessation of the bomb tests for 2003.

After divorcing her longtime husband Adolfo Krans shortly after taking office, she married Ramón Cantero Frau, the previous Minister for Economic Development in her cabinet, in 2003. In the same year, she announced that she would not run for governorship again.

Successor as governor was on January 2, 2005 Aníbal Acevedo Vilá , who is also a member of the PPD.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ NEW YORK TIMES: 3 Candidates Wage Tough Campaign in Drive to Become San Juan's 2d Female Mayor
  2. ↑ New York Times: POLITICAL BRIEFING; Incremental Progress For Women in Politics
  3. ↑ NEW YORK TIMES: Puerto Rico Governor Seeks A Ban on Vieques Bombing
  4. ↑ NEW YORK TIMES: Navy Bombing Is Betrayal, Puerto Rico's Governor Says
  5. ^ NEW YORK TIMES: Navy Leaves a Battered Island, and Puerto Ricans Cheer
personal data
SURNAME Calderón, Sila María
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Calderón Serra de Cantero, Sila María (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Puerto Rican politician
DATE OF BIRTH September 23, 1942
PLACE OF BIRTH San Juan (Puerto Rico)