EDITOR’S NOTE: On election day, the Centro de Periodismo Investigativo (CPI) served as a training ground for journalism and photojournalism students. This chronicle and its photos are the result of that experience.

At 9 am, as polling places opened their doors on that   Tuesday, Javier Jiménez, the gubernatorial candidate for Project Dignity (PD), was fastening the last buttons of his long-sleeved white shirt to welcome the press to his home in San Sebastián. On the terrace of his urban San Sebastián home, a long table with a white tablecloth adorned with Christmas trees was set to greet visitors. A sweet scent of fruit filled the air. At another table, a cook prepared scrambled eggs and sandwiches accompanied by coffee and orange juice for breakfast. The candidate’s team awaited him in a semicircle, their faces calm as they faced the general elections.

“I’m calm,” whispered Olga Daisy Galarza, Jiménez’s wife, to the gubernatorial candidate’s press officer, María Ángela Pérez, as she greeted her with a kiss on the cheek. It was the first time in 20 years that her husband was running for an office other than the mayoralty of San Sebastián, a municipality in the northwestern center of the island with about 40,000 inhabitants. He also debuted as a candidate for a political organization different from the New Progressive Party (PNP). In September of the previous year, he left the PNP because “it has strayed so far from its roots and ideals and the purposes of its founding .” The following month, he joined PD, a party founded in 2019 on religious principles and, following the COVID-19 pandemic, embraced libertarian ideology, which primarily advocates minimal state intervention in individual activities and supports the free market, among other neoliberal ideas.

Little is known about Jiménez’s religious life. Some biographies say he belonged to the Presbyterian Church, where he was a Ruling Elder, but he has said when interviewed, that he does not frequently attend any church in recent times. What became clear, especially in 2020, was his conservative mindset on social and economic issues. Jiménez supported groups questioning the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccine and challenged government mandates requiring it in order to be in crowded places during 2021. He incorrectly refers to “gender ideology” when discussing gender perspective, rejects abortion as a woman’s right, and recognizes the family only as one made up of a man and a woman. For the U.S. presidency, he supported Donald Trump.

Just a month after joining PD, his party made him president and gubernatorial candidate, bypassing Ada Norah Henríquez, a lawyer who was the party’s candidate for Resident Commissioner in the 2020 elections and had made public her interest in the gubernatorial candidacy for these elections.

“I am very satisfied with the mission we started a year ago throughout Puerto Rico. Bringing a message of a very different government, of respect, of fiscal discipline, eliminating the plundering of Puerto Rico, protecting our children, our values, and everything we treasure and believe in. We are firmly convinced that they are necessary to get Puerto Rico out of where we are,” stated Javier, as he is known in the town he has led as mayor for two decades.

Jiménez asserts that PD, the party founded by Dr. César Vázquez, is the only one that embraces the values of the conservative sector in Puerto Rico. “I hope to prevail. I hope the conservative people, the Christian people, and the people who treasure all their values come out to vote for a transformational change. Voting for the same (political parties) means voting for the destruction of this country,” he said before heading to his polling place.

At 11 a.m., Jiménez, his family, and the PD mayoral candidate for San Sebastián, Camilo Ortiz Maldonado, joined in prayer before heading to vote at a school in the Saltos neighborhood of that town. Heads bowed and eyes closed, they took a 10–second deep breath. When they finished, they all got into their cars, and fifteen minutes later, they arrived at the Carmelo Serrano Cubano School.

Upon arrival, long lines and umbrellas — blue, green, and yellow — surrounded the entrance to the voting rooms. As the candidate walked toward the polling station, a local resident, Esther Soto Irizarry, complained about the slow-moving line she was waiting in to cast her vote. The woman claimed she had been waiting to vote since early morning. “In the primaries, they did the same thing to me, sending me to three different schools when I am someone with a disability card,” she protested. She added that she was tired due to the delay and the temperature, which hovered around 90 degrees.

The people of San Sebastián welcomed the mayor with applause and support. The latest audit report from the Office of the Comptroller, published in 2023, indicated that the operations of the Municipality of San Sebastián “were conducted, in all significant respects, following applicable law and regulations.” No findings were noted by the auditors. Jiménez, who will turn 63 next month, has been a Certified Public Accountant for nearly 40 years. According to the summary of his financial report published by the Office of Government Ethics (OEG), in 2023, he had a personal capital of $443,330, which is $151,054 less than what he reported in 2009, the first record on the OEG’s website. 

At the polling place, accompanied by his family, friends, and supporters, Jiménez voted straight-ticket with a mark under the party he leads on all three ballots. “Today is a special day for me and for every Puerto Rican who longs for an honest government committed to the well-being of its people,” he expressed as camera lights reflected on his face. “Today, I voted for Project Dignity, a party representing my values and the vision of a better Puerto Rico.”

After concluding his vote around 12:30 p.m., Jiménez and his family headed to the San Juan metropolitan area to await the results that would define Puerto Rico’s leadership for the next four years. For the president of Project Dignity, support for his candidacy would come from voters who “want to see real and sustainable change.”

At 10 p.m., with 83.99% of the polling stations reported, the alternate president of the State Elections Commission (CEE), Jessika Padilla Rivera, preliminarily declared the former party colleague of the San Sebastián mayor, the NPP’s Jenniffer González, as the winner of the election, accumulating 39.54% of the votes counted. In second place was Juan Dalmau, the gubernatorial candidate for the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP) in alliance with the Citizen Victory Movement (MVC), with 31.90%, while Jesús Manuel Ortiz, from the Popular Democratic Party (PPD), placed third with 22.46%.

Jiménez Pérez was relegated to fourth and last place in the electoral contest with 6.36%, meaning he failed to add new votes to PD compared to the organization’s performance in the 2020 elections. “I’m very surprised [by the results]. I believed there was a conservative Christian people in Puerto Rico who treasured all the proposals we made. I did believe that conservative people would embrace that vision of government,” he declared at a press conference that night. Locally in San Sebastián, however, he placed second, obtaining 28.32% of the 16,358 votes reported by the CEE that night as cast in that municipality.

In his view, the loser in these elections was not his party but the people of Puerto Rico. “What defeat? They defeated themselves. The people were the ones who were defeated,” he said.

In his hometown of San Sebastián, the mayoral candidate backed by Jiménez, Camilo Ortiz Maldonado, received only 29.91% of the votes, while PPD candidate Eladio “Layito” Cardona Quiles won with 38.37%. In the gubernatorial race, Jiménez came in fourth with 6.71%. González, the PNP candidate, obtained 39.44%, Dalmau, from the Alliance, 32.66%, and Ortiz, from the PPD, 21.06%.

Jiménez will soon leave the presidency of PD as his term was set to end with the elections. The party’s presidency will return to its founder, as determined in an assembly held in January 2024. The mayor stated that this political transition will occur “at any time” before the end of the year. “It is supposed to be until the scrutiny, but if we have already finished all matters related to the presidency, then at any time before December 31,” he explained.

The municipal transition is set for January, marking the end of Jiménez’s two-decade tenure.