Hernández Rivera assails entrenched ‘laziness’ in party leadership
---
The incoming president of the Popular Democratic Party (PDP), Resident Commissioner Pablo José Hernández Rivera, confirmed on Tuesday that the party intends to sell its headquarters in Puerta de Tierra.
“I have already identified a person who will carry out the appraisal project, to identify possible buyers,” Hernández Rivera said in a radio interview (Radio Isla 1320). “The reason why I think we need to look for new headquarters is because that headquarters, in addition to being in such a marked state of deterioration that it is almost impossible to save it without spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, is also the fact that it is not an appropriate headquarters for the times. You do not need five floors for a political party that competes every four years. The fifth floor was a printing press, the fifth floor is already abandoned, but it does not need a printing press today either. The fourth floor is used every four years for the gubernatorial campaign, the third floor is an activity room and the second floor is an office room, and the first floor also has an activity room, but the first and third floors are almost never used at the same time; you could have just one. So I think we need a much more modern headquarters.”
Hernández Rivera added that there had been “laziness” in the leadership of the party for the past 20 years.
“Of course, no, no, you have to sacrifice selfishness, complacency, this attitude of doing things because that is how they have always been done,” he said. “Well, I think that what has always been done has stopped working, and you have to have a lot of work discipline, because it is not blind Party discipline. Party discipline comes when people feel inspired to collaborate with the same goal, when people feel listened to, but what we need is a strong work ethic. I mean, there are things here that really, really were not done due to a lack of work ethic, this thing about the Popular Party not having revenue, or having difficulty paying for water and electricity. I have heard many excuses, all of them seem unacceptable to me.”
“There is a large component of laziness in the trajectory of the Popular Party over the last 20 years,” continued Hernández Rivera, who will assume the presidency of the PDP this Sunday at an event in Humacao. “It is all-encompassing, … it is a problem that has become institutionalized and that not a single person has been able to resolve, but that I am focused on solving. There has been laziness in the Popular Party, of course there has been.”
