… in a deeper sense the evictions hurt rather than help competition and expose the gap between the PNP’s crafted persona and the reality of its governance.

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The recentdistributionofeviction noticesin mid-May by Puerto Rico’s Department of Transportation and Public Works tostreet vendorsalong the PR‑129 highway between Arecibo and Lares has drawn attention far beyond the immediate question of roadside safety, because for the vendors themselves, many of whom have operated for years selling fruit, snacks, and prepared meals to travelers crossing the mountain corridor, those notices represent a direct threat to survival, yet the evictions send a sharper and more troubling signal that cuts directly against the image the New Progressive Party and the current González administration have long cultivated for themselves.

Edwin González Montalvo, the Secretary of the Department of Transportation and Public Works (DTOP),statedthat the visits received by vendors along the PR‑129 highway are purely routine, explaining that the actions taken by DTOP personnel form part of the agency’s regular procedures directed at protecting road safety and guaranteeing the proper use of state highways, and adding that these actions include guidance and notification regarding unauthorized structures, signs, or occupations, particularly in areas that may present risks to drivers, pedestrians, or the operations and maintenance of road infrastructure, a framing that presents the state as a neutral enforcer of uniform rules rather than an actor making deliberate economic choices, and whether one accepts this explanationor not, it effectively shifts the conversation away from questions of competition and free enterprise toward the narrower technical ground of traffic safety and administrative consistency. The Secretary of the DTOP, Edwin González Montalvo, was appointed by the Governor of Puerto Rico to lead the agency responsible for road safety and infrastructure. His nomination and subsequent confirmation are the standard mechanisms by which an administration places its chosen officials in positions of authority.

The PNP has historically presented itself as the party of capitalism, that is pro-business, up holds free enterprise and nurtures robust competition, with a public persona stretching from previous governors to the present leadership that casts the party as the business-friendly modernizer, the force that cuts red tape, attracts private investment, and celebrates the entrepreneurship. The PNP while standing in party rhetoric and campaign materials for a society where anyone with initiative can enter the market, compete fairly, and succeed or fail on their own merits, an image that has been a central pillar of the party’s political identity, distinguishing it from rival parties painted as hostile to business and overly protective of state intervention.

The eviction campaign on PR‑129 throws that image into sharp dissonance because the street vendors in question are precisely the kind of micro entrepreneurs the PNP claims to champion, operating with minimal capital, responding directly to local demand, and filling gaps that formal businesses cannot or will not address, yet by using state authority to criminalize their activity the DTOP is not fostering competition but actively suppressing it, since a truly pro competition environment would seek to integrate informal vendors into the formal economy through low cost permits, designated vending zones, or gradual compliance schedules instead of choosing eviction as a blunt instrument that removes competitors entirely rather than leveling the playing field.

This pattern is not new for the PNP, as a longer view of successive PNP administrations reveals a consistent habit of adopting the language of free enterprise while enacting policies that harm genuine competition, with previous PNP governors championing tax incentive laws that heavily favored large corporations and wealthy newcomers from the mainland often at the expense of local small businesses, and the same party that speaks of entrepreneurial dynamism has also supported aggressive enforcement against informal vendors, unlicensed taxi drivers, and small scale agricultural sellers, actions that raise barriers to entry rather than lowering them, so the PR‑129 evictions fit seamlessly into this longer record where the pro capitalist persona masks a practical preference for a regulated, permit heavy economy that benefits established players.

The González administration appears to have continued this tradition without significant modification, because facing ongoing economic stagnation and a public weary of austerity the government has chosen a target that lacks political power or media protection, namely the informal vendor who cannot afford a lawyer or a lobbyist, and while the safety argument used to justify the evictions, that vendors obstruct traffic or create hazards, is not necessarily invalid, the absence of any accompanying effort to provide legal vending alternatives suggests that the real purpose is removal rather than regulation, which is the hallmark of a governance style that praises the abstract entrepreneur while punishing the concrete one.

Finally, the location of the evictions adds another layer of meaning, since PR‑129 connects Arecibo, a former industrial center now struggling with decline, to Lares, a symbol of local resistance and self-sufficiency, making the corridor precisely the kind of economically fragile region where informal commerce becomes a lifeline, and by enforcing evictions here the state sends a clear message that the PNP´s vision of free enterprise does not extend to the margins of the formal economy, so the resulting vacuum will likely be filled by larger, better capitalized operators who can afford the licensing and overhead that the vendors on the road cannot, meaning that in a deeper sense the evictions may hurt rather than help competition and expose the gap between the PNP´s crafted persona and the reality of its governance.

Miguel Santos Garcíais a Puerto Ricanwriterandpolitical analystwho mainly writes about the geopolitics of neocolonial conflicts and Hybrid Wars within the 4th Industrial Revolution, the ongoing New Cold War and the transition towards multipolarity. Visit his bloghere.

Source: Global Research