Aníbal Acevedo Vilá

Acevedo Vilá began his political career in 1989 as Legislative Affairs Advisor to Governor Rafael Hernández Colón. Shortly after, he became Director of the Legislative Affairs Office of La Fortaleza. He was also responsible for the analysis and redaction of legislative measures like the Educational Reform and the Municipal Reform.[6]

In 1992, Acevedo Vilá was elected Representative At-Large to the Puerto Rico's House of Representatives. His parliamentary work was mostly in the commissions of Government, Retirement System, Women Affairs, and others. In 1993, he was an active member of the PPD campaign in favor of the current commonwealth status for the plebiscite held in the island on 14 November 1993. In the end, the Commonwealth, or Estado Libre Asociado, beat the other options of statehood and independence.

Acevedo Vilá was reelected as Representative in 1996. That same year, Party President Héctor Luis Acevedo also put him in charge of the Status Committee of the party. The following year, his party elected him Minority Leader of the House. To continue his ascension in the Party ranks, in February 1997, Acevedo Vilá ran for President of the Popular Democratic Party against veteran Eudaldo Báez Galib, and won 180–124.

In 1998, Acevedo Vilá participated in a campaign against the Young Bill, a proposed legislative project in the U.S. Congress that sought to resolve the political status of Puerto Rico by defining each proposed status option and calling for a series of referendums. Although the referendum called for in the project would have included the option for Puerto Rico to remain a Commonwealth, the option would have to be renewed by island voters every ten years, until they opted for independence or statehood.

Although the project was not approved, Puerto Rico's elected officials under Governor Pedro Rosselló organized a non-binding plebiscite to define Puerto Rico's political status, in which Puerto Ricans were given five options: Commonwealth, associated republic, Statehood, Independence from the United States, or "none of the above".

Acevedo Vilá and his party believed the definition of the commonwealth option was incorrect because it defined the current political status as territorial. His party campaigned for the "none of the above" option, which ultimately garnered the majority of the votes. (See Puerto Rican status referendums for more information.)

In 1999, Acevedo Vilá became Vice-President of the PPD, as the current Mayor of San Juan, Sila Calderón assumed the Presidency and became the candidate for Governor of Puerto Rico. Acevedo Vilá settled to be the candidate for the Resident Commissioner position, but he was challenged by José Alfredo Hernández Mayoral, son of former Governor and Acevedo Vilá's mentor, Rafael Hernández Colón. Acevedo Vilá won the primary held on 14 November 1999 with 54% of the votes. The next year, Acevedo Vilá defeated Carlos Romero Barceló, the incumbent Resident Commissioner, while Sila Calderón became the first female Governor of Puerto Rico defeating the PNP candidate, Carlos Pesquera.

Acevedo was sworn in at the Washington Capitol Building on 3 January 2001. Among the legislative measures helmed by Acevedo were the assignment of equal funds for education and the Medicare program in Puerto Rico.

In mid-2003, Governor Sila M. Calderón announced she would not seek a second term on the following year's elections. José Hernández Mayoral again surfaced as the likely party's candidate for Governor for the 2004 elections. The Party General Council agreed and decided to put Acevedo to run for Mayor of San Juan. However, months following the announcement, Hernández Mayoral widthdrew from the race, citing personal matters, and Acevedo Vilá announced he would run for the Governor's seat. On 14 August, he was again elected as President of the Party.

Governor Acevedo Vilá holding the American flag.

Acevedo Vilá won the Puerto Rico General Elections of 2004 by approximately 3,880 votes (0.2 percent of the vote) over former governor Pedro Rosselló. However, since the margin of victory was so small, a full recount of the elections took place. During the period, Rosselló filed a civil lawsuit against Acevedo Vilá himself over a dispute of certain ballots that were cast during the elections. Acevedo Vilá is also the first elected governor born after the adoption of the 1952 Constitution of Puerto Rico. Many independentistas voted for Governor Anibal Acevedo Vilá because they did not want the statehood candidate to win the tight race.[7]

Sample ballot for 2004 Gubernatorial Election, illustrating the Mixed Vote permissible under CEE Rule 50.

Since Acevedo Vilá's margin of victory was just 3,880 votes, less than one vote per electoral polling room, the result led to a protracted controversy involving appeals to the United States federal courts and the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico. The leaders of the New Progressive Party alleged that some ballots were invalid and should not be counted.

The controversy reached the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico, which ruled 4–3 that the ballots in question were valid. Rosselló challenged the ballots on the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico, where District Judge Daniel Domínguez ordered the Puerto Rico Election Commission to count the disputed votes but not adjudicate them to any candidate until he reached a decision on the merits of the case. Vilá and his team challenged this ruling and the case moved up to the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, where three judges ruled the question of whether or not the ballots were properly cast was not a federal constitutional issue and therefore should be decided by the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico at the Commonwealth level. The Supreme Court affirmed its prior 4–3 decision. On 28 December 2004 the recount ended and Acevedo Vilá was certified as winner and therefore elected governor.

Acevedo Vilá was finally sworn as Governor on 2 January 2005. During his term, he faced many political challenges, due to the fact that the main opposing party, New Progressive Party (NPP) gained control of the Legislative Assembly of Puerto Rico, the Resident Commissioner in Congress (Luis Fortuño), and Acevedo Vilá's main political rival, Pedro Rosselló (former Governor or Puerto Rico who had just lost the election against Acevedo), managed to gain a seat in the Senate of Puerto Rico after a young first-term Senator from Arecibo unexpectedly resigned shortly after taking the oath of office, and unsuccessfully attempted to topple Senate President Kenneth McClintock.

Because the executive and the legislative branches of the government are controlled by different political parties, Governor Acevedo Vilá called his government a "shared government". During the first months of his term, Acevedo Vilá concentrated his efforts on trying to reach bipartisan support for his bills and for the nominees of his Cabinet. However, this collapsed when Acevedo Vilá vetoed a legislative bill proposed by the NPP.

During May 2005, confrontations between the executive and the legislative branches reached a new climax when the Puerto Rico legislature voted to override a veto by Acevedo Vilá, thus becoming the first democratically elected governor to have a veto overridden by the legislature. Later in June, Acevedo Vilá and the legislature were frequently at odds about the budget proposal. The budget proposed by the Governor was not accepted by the leaders of the PNP in the legislature and they proposed a different budget, which Acevedo Vilá vetoed in August 2005.

During his 2004 campaign, he promised that he would not support a sales tax. The tax was proposed to pay part of the commonwealth's external debt. In spite of all these measures, he was unable to finish his term with a balanced budget. During his term as governor he opened up commerce and trade with foreign countries. He was also the only governor to speak to the United Nations on the political status of Puerto Rico.

New tensions surfaced during April 2006, when Acevedo Vilá announced the central government of Puerto Rico did not have enough funds to pay the salary of public employees for the months of May and June. The Governor asked the Legislature to approve a loan of over $500 million so that the government could keep the agencies running. The Senate approved the loan, but the House of Representatives refused to do so. Acevedo Vilá then announced that most of the government agencies would shut down beginning 1 May, and would remain closed unless the House approved the new loan. The government shutdown lasted two weeks, until Governor Acevedo Vilá, the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House reached an agreement to end the shutdown. The details of the agreement included the approval of a new loan as well as new fiscal reforms that would impose a sales tax and require the reduction of operational costs of the central government of the island.

During the course of 2008, Acevedo Vilá was indicted with a total of 24 charges of corruption. Due to this situation and the economic crisis hampering his tenure, several potential candidates like William Miranda Marín (Mayor of Caguas) and Alejandro García Padilla (former Secretary of the Department of Consumer Affairs and candidate to the Senate) were mentioned as possible replacements. However, Acevedo Vilá decided to run for reelection, and was openly endorsed by the Party in a massive rally held at the José Miguel Agrelot Coliseum.

Sometime after, he chose the President of the Puerto Rico Government Development Bank Alfredo Salazar as his running mate for the position of Resident Commissioner. The final rally of the Popular Democratic Party campaign looked like a massive gathering at the parking lot of one of the stations of the Tren Urbano as reported by press.[8] Despite this final push, Acevedo Vilá was defeated by Fortuño by 224,894 votes, being the PPD candidate defeated by the largest margin in Puerto Rico's history. Shortly after, Acevedo Vilá announced his resignation as President of the Party.