THE LIE OF SUFFRAGE
By Pedro Albizu Campos
Sovereignty resides in the Nation. The powers of the State, that is, of the national juridical personality, are formed by delegation that the Nation makes, directly, at times, as still happens in popular assemblies, or as in many Swiss communes, indirectly, by means of compromisers, a form that is used to designate the North American executive.
When the circumscription passes from a certain territorial extension or if the population is numerous, the popular assembly to designate the mandatories is substituted by the current electoral precinct with its respective colleges. The sovereign national will is marked on the ballot.
In any case, the condition of citizen sui-juris is required, which varies with the constitutions of the nations and of their political regimes.
The serf or slave lacks suffrage because they do not fulfill those constitutional requirements, but, once servitude is legally abolished, the denial of that right persists for those who lived in slavery and their descendants, by the superior social mandate. Such is the case of more than sixteen million North Americans, who, for the sole fact of having African blood in their veins, still cannot vote in their own country.
The organization of the State is the result of the equilibrium of the social forces that make up the nationality. The number of mandatories of each class is determined by the constitution or custom, without distinction of political regimes.
The virtuality of suffrage lies, however, in its power to modify in any way the written or customary constitution of the nationality.
In Puerto Rico suffrage does not exist in any form. The organized juridical personality of the Puerto Rican State does not exist due to suppression by force of the North American military occupation. The country is governed militarily by a regulation imposed on it by the imperial occupying power of the United States.
The military regulation provides for the holding of elections to designate mandatories who exclusively support the regime. The imperial power reserves its intervention to destroy the result of any election as has been demonstrated in the case of the municipality of San Juan. The municipality itself could be abolished if necessary. If it were a question of the representation of the colonial legislature, the occupying power, through its imperial congress, could immediately amend the regulation called the Organic Act, to nullify the result of any election.
Neither citizenship nor suffrage exists.
Before the invading military occupation, the Puerto Rican Nation has to organize its juridical personality. It cannot submit because it will never agree to its extinction. It has to do it under the adverse conditions imposed on it by the occupying enemy force.
The electoral farce can become a devastating reality of the regime that oppresses the Homeland. It would be the case of a forced plebiscite against the power as has happened in Spain. In our case it is a question of something even more serious; of the suppression of the foreign occupation, to organize the Puerto Rican nationality.
The mandatories will be constituents. The convention will establish the government of the Republic and will request recognition from all the nations and international powers.
The dilemma for the North American empire before the firmness of the Puerto Rican Nation would be to dissolve the convention with gunfire or recognize the Republic. Of course, once its regime is declared null by the Convention, no act of the Yankee congress could be imposed on the country unless force, blood, and fire were resorted to. The North American empire does not face (sic) that dilemma, according to the opinion of its most illustrious personalities.
It has to agree, according to them, to the recognition of the Republic. To do the contrary would bring down its prestige in addition to the serious international complications that would necessarily arise.
Once the Republic is restored, there would be citizenship and suffrage.