Besieged Puerto Rico governor goes quiet amid protests

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — In the Spanish colonial fortress that serves as his official residence, Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló is under siege.

Motorcyclists, celebrities and hundreds of thousands of ordinary Puerto Ricans are swarming to La Fortaleza (The Fort) in Old San Juan, demanding Rosselló resign over a series of leaked online chats insulting women, political opponents and even the victims of Hurricane Maria.

The telegenic 40-year-old son of a former governor has dropped his normally intense rhythm of public appearances and gone into relatively long periods of near-media silence, intensifying questions about his future.

For much of his 2.5 years in office Rosselló has given three or four lengthy news conferences a week, comfortably fielding question after question in Spanish and English from the local and international press.

And that's on top of public appearances, one-on-one interviews and televised meetings with visiting politicians and members of his administration. Since July 11, when Rosselló cut short a family vacation in France and returned home to face the first signs of what has become an island-wide movement to oust him, the governor has made four appearances, all but one in highly controlled situations.

The crisis has even cut back Rosselló's affable online presence. The governor normally started every day by tweeting "Good morning!" to his followers about 5 a.m. The last such bright-and-early message came July 8. The tweets from his account have dwindled to a trickle since then, and each one is met by a flood of often-abusive responses from Puerto Ricans demanding he resign.

New protests took place this afternoon, with unionized workers organizing a march to La Fortaleza from the nearby waterfront and hundreds of other people coming from around the city and surrounding areas. A string of smaller events was on the agenda across the island over the weekend, followed by what many expected to be a massive protest on Monday.

Rosselló's secretary of public affairs, Anthony Maceira, told reporters the governor was in La Fortaleza working on signing laws and filling posts emptied by the resignations of fellow members of the leaked chat group.

The head of Rosselló's pro-statehood political party said a meeting of its directors had been convened for coming days, although the agenda was not disclosed beyond "addressing every one of the complaints of our colleagues."