San Juan Mayor Sila Maria Calderon, chief executive of Puerto Rico's Capital City for four years, was elected Governor of Puerto Rico in Island-wide elections November 7.

An Advisory Board member of The United States Conference of Mayors, the new Governor-elect, an advocate of continued Commonwealth status for the Island's 3.8 million U.S. citizens, defeated the pro-statehood candidate Carlos Pesquera, Puerto Rico's former Secretary of Transportation, by garnering 48.5 percent of the vote against Pesquera's 45.7 percent.

Calderon is replaced by Puerto Rican Senator Jorge Santini Padilla as the new Mayor of San Juan for a four-year term. Santini, a member of the pro-statehood New Progressive Party, defeated Senator Eduardo Bhatia Gautier.

Every four years, Puerto Rico conducts a "sweepstakes" election. At stake are the races for Mayors of the Island's 78 municipalities, the Commonwealth legislature, and, in addition to Governor, the seat of Puerto Rico's non-voting delegate in the United States Congress. Former San Juan Mayor and current Resident Commissioner in Congress, Carlos Romero Barcelo, was defeated by the pro-commonwealth candidate Anibal Acevedo-Vila.

Romero, also a former Governor of Puerto Rico, has served for eight years in Congress. The post is the second highest in the government of Puerto Rico.

In a major political re-alignment of Puerto Rico's municipal governments, the island's pro-commonwealth advocates captured 46 of the Island's 78 municipalities. Prior to elections, statehood supporters were in charge of 54 municipalities, their total is now reduced to 32.

Mayor Calderon succeeds pro-statehood Governor Pedro Rossello who served for two consecutive four-year terms.

As a gubernatorial candidate, Mayor Calderon campaigned against corruption in government, and against the continued presence and use by the U.S. Navy of the off-shore municipality of Vieques for live-fire military training exercises.

The United States Conference of Mayors endorsed her position that the Navy cease training exercises in Vieques during a Conference Urban Water Summit in Puerto Rico in October of 1999.

Then Conference President Denver Mayor Wellington E. Webb led a delegation of mainland U.S. Mayors to city hall for a press conference with Mayor Calderon to support her position that the Navy immediately cease operations in Vieques.