Puerto Rico: Plebiscite Postponed

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To crown his 13 years as the man in charge of Puerto Rico, Governor Luis Mufioz Marin, 64, cherishes a hope of making permanent his Caribbean island's unique status as a U.S. commonwealth. Last July he called for a plebiscite late this year to let Puerto Rico's 2,450,000 people choose among independence, statehood or an improved variation of the commonwealth status that he invented 12 years ago as a way to get the benefits of both home rule and U.S. help.

Puerto Rico's Statehood Republican Party provides the only effective opposition there is to Mufioz' Popular Democratic Party. In the 1960 election for Governor, the Republican candidate, Luis Ferre, drew only 252,364 votes to Munoz' 457,880. But the Republicans believe that their statehood cause has been gaining strength recently. In legislative hearings and in private talks with Mufioz, the Republicans complained that Munoz was demanding a decision for or against statehood without any indication from the U.S. that statehood was even possible. Angrily, they threatened to boycott the plebiscite.

Though his party chieftains urged him to go ahead anyway, Munoz felt that any mandate he received would be seriously flawed by a Republican boycott. Last week he agreed to postpone a vote until the U.S. Congress could be consulted. Republicans joined Popular Democrats in the island legislature to approve a resolution asking the U.S. Congress for a firm commitment to give Puerto Ricans whatever status they selected.