Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló officially resigned Friday evening with no clear successor in place.
Rosselló faced weeks of protesters calling for him to step down after leaked chat messages between him and multiple government officials revealed incendiary and unprofessional comments.
Caving to mounting pressure, Rosselló announced his resignation last month and picked Secretary of Justice Wanda Vázquez Garced to be his successor. However, she said she did not want the job.
Rosselló also nominated Pedro R. Pierluisi as secretary of state. The position is next up in the line of succession, but Pierluisi has not been confirmed yet, and the Legislative Assembly will not meet until Monday.
“It is also crucial to restore the trust of federal authorities and Congress, where I have earned respect,” he said, adding, “and to re-establish a productive relationship with the oversight board, based only on what is good for Puerto Rico and facilitates the end of its mandate.”
In a legislative session on Thursday, Senate President Thomas Rivera Schatz said Pierluisi should not be the next governor because arguing that his previous job as a lawyer “representing Puerto Rico’s No. 1 enemy,” a reference to the federal oversight board that monitors all of the island’s finances, was a conflict of interest. Some in the legislative body don’t believe Pierluisi has the votes to be confirmed, according to NBC News.
Garced, who is the equivalent to a state attorney general, is also mired in controversy. She faced criminal charges after allegedly interfering in a case involving her daughter, however she was later cleared of any wrongdoing. Garced was also been accused of mishandling and or delaying prosecutions of members of her own political party, the New Progressive Party.
