Editing Roberto Sánchez Vilella (section)

==Governor==
[[File:Ben-Gurion - Roberto Sanches Vilella 1958.jpg|250px|thumb|right|Roberto Sánchez Vilella meeting with [[David Ben-Gurion]] during a visit to [[Israel]] in 1958]]
After a long and distinguished career as city manager of the city of San Juan, Secretary of Public Works and as the first Secretary of State, Sánchez Vilella was handpicked by Governor [[Luis Muñoz Marín]] to run as the PPD's candidate for governor in 1964. Sánchez won the election by a comfortable margin, becoming the second democratically elected governor of the island.

During his tenure, Sánchez Vilella tried to change his party's membership, urging a younger generation to rise in the friends party's organization. It could be argued that Sánchez Vilella was influenced by the youth movement that the island was experiencing countrywide during the 1960s, a period where many social areas in Puerto Rico, including television, music and sports, were being introduced to fresh, younger personalities.

Sánchez Vilella had public marital problems during his term. In March 1967, his [[affair]] with his 35-year-old, twice-divorced former legislative aide, [[Jeannette Ramos|Jeannette Ramos Buonono]], became public.<ref name=time>{{cite magazine|title=Milestones: Oct. 13, 1967 |url=http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,837415,00.html |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]] |date=1967-10-13 |access-date=2019-08-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140721020057/http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,837415,00.html |archive-date=2014-07-21 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=nytimes>{{cite news|first=Robert |last=Mcg. Thomas Jr.|title=Roberto Sanchez Vilella, 84, Puerto Rican Governor, Dies |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1997/03/26/us/roberto-sanchez-vilella-84-puerto-rican-governor-dies.html |work=[[The New York Times]]|date=1997-03-26 |access-date=2019-08-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181122165107/https://www.nytimes.com/1997/03/26/us/roberto-sanchez-vilella-84-puerto-rican-governor-dies.html |archive-date=2018-11-22 |url-status=live}}</ref> Sánchez Vilella and his wife of 31 years, then [[First Ladies and Gentlemen of Puerto Rico|First Lady]] [[Conchita Dapena]], separated shortly afterwards when Governor Sánchez Vilella announced his intention to seek a [[divorce]] in order to marry Ramos.<ref name=time/><ref name=nytimes/> In October 1967, Governor Sánchez Vilella and Jeannette Ramos married in a [[civil ceremony]] held in [[Humacao, Puerto Rico]], just two days after his divorce from Dapena was finalized.<ref name=time/> This was the governor's second marriage and Ramos' third marriage.<ref name=time/> His marital problems were brought to center stage during the 1968 gubernatorial campaign, given the still-conservative Puerto Rican moral values of the time, including the stigmatization of divorce. The affair effectively ended Sánchez Vilella's political career and he announced at the time that he would not seek re-election.<ref name=nytimes/>

His goals of revitalization and change led to a public break with former governor, Luis Muñoz Marín, who was still party leader. Because of this, the PPD nominated [[Luis Negrón López]] for governor in the elections of 1968. Sánchez Vilella left the PPD and founded his own party, the ''[[Partido del Pueblo]]'' (''The People's Party''). While his new party lost in the 1968 elections, it caused a considerable percentage of PPD voters to vote for him, indirectly helping [[Luis A. Ferré]] and his [[New Progressive Party of Puerto Rico|New Progressive Party]] to win that year. It did not matter that Ferré had made a similar split with his ''Partido Estadista Republicano'' (Statehood Republican Party) due to that party's decision not to support the statehood status option in the 1967 Puerto Rican status plebiscite (Ferré created the [[New Progressive Party of Puerto Rico]] as a consequence). There is even speculation that [[United States Navy]] officials, scorned by Sánchez Vilella as long-time meddlers in Puerto Rican affairs (in a by-now famous episode, Sánchez Vilella had thrashed a [[hotline]] telephone that linked the governor's office and the local Navy command) used Navy intelligence resources to prepare a smear campaign against Sánchez Vilella and helped Ferré with logistics and money for his own gubernatorial campaign. Nevertheless, Sánchez Vilella was finally blamed for the first loss in the history of the PPD. His relationship with former governor Muñoz Marín was severely strained, but the two friends mended their differences in the late 1970s.

In 1972, Sánchez Vilella made his third and last run for elective office when he obtained 59,000 votes in his bid to become a representative-at-large, but lost when the [[Supreme Court of Puerto Rico]] certified the election of [[Puerto Rican Independence Party]] (PIP) candidate Luis Ángel Torres, who polled fewer than 150 votes, based on its interpretation of the [[Constitution of Puerto Rico|Puerto Rico Constitution]]'s rules regarding the election of at-large legislative candidates.<ref>{{cite book | last=Muñoz | first=J.C.A. | title=Rebeldes al poder: los grupos y la lucha ideológica : 1959-2000 | publisher=Isla Negra | series=Colección Visiones y cegueras | year=2003 | isbn=978-1-932271-04-1 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JxXS4vGo9WQC&pg=PA108 | language=es | access-date=2021-01-12 | page=108}}</ref>