Annotations for Subject-headings: Political Activity

This is news from Latino USA. I'm Maria Martin. Voters in New York City have elected by the narrowest of margins, Republican Rudolph Giuliani as their new mayor. Mandalit del Barco reports the majority of Latinos cast their ballots for the losing candidate, incumbent Mayor David Dinkins.

The city's Latinos whom both candidates had courted as the key swing vote once again voted overwhelmingly for Dinkins. 60% of the Latino votes went for Dinkins and many said they wanted to give another chance to the city's first African-American mayor, but the numbers just weren't high enough. Dinkins urged his supporters to respect the decision of those who voted for Giuliani. Giuliani also had a message to those voters.

What I think we both want to say to the people of the city is that it doesn't matter for whom you voted, whether you voted for me, for David Dinkins, or you decided not to vote, or you voted for any of the other candidates, today we're all New Yorkers.

A federal investigation is underway to look into charges by Mayor Dinkins of dirty tricks by Giuliani supporters. Dinkins told of intimidating posters seen around the largely Dominican neighborhood of Washington Heights warning voters that poll watchers would be checking voters passports, charges Giuliani has denied. For Latino USA, I'm Mandalit del Barco in New York.

I'm Maria Hinojosa. The Latino vote had been predicted to play a significant role in recent mayoral elections in two major US cities, New York, where Republican Rudolph Giuliani defeated the city's first African-American mayor, David Dinkins in a very close race, and Miami were Cuban-born city Commissioner Miriam Alonso will face former Mayor Steve Clark in a runoff on November 9th. With us to talk about these elections and the role of the Latino vote are political analyst Gerson Borrero in New York, and from Miami, Ivan Roman, a reporter for El Nuevo Herald. Bienvenidos a los dos, welcome.

Let's take a look at the numbers in these two races and where the Latino vote went and what difference it made, if at all. Let's look at Miami first. What happened in Miami, Ivan?

Well, first of all, in Miami the Hispanics are a majority of the vote. Regardless of what happens with Hispanics, they are to play a major role. Interestingly enough, what you had was a race between Commissioner Miriam Alonso, who is Cuban, and an Anglo former Miami Mayor, Steve Clark, the vote was split amongst Hispanics. 60% for Alonso and 40% for Clark, and there are many reasons for that. Some analysts attribute a generational gap because Miriam Alonso resorted to shrill ethnic appeals in the last week that they say the younger generation and exit polls show that the younger generation of Cubans and Cuban Americans reject. So, there you have an interesting dynamic in which you have Hispanics and mostly Cubans who are splitting their vote and not necessarily voting Cuban, which is what the older time and the older Cubans tend to do.

Now in New York, Gerson, the Latino vote was talked about for a very long time as being the swing vote. Did it in fact make the difference for getting Republican Giuliani into office this time around?

Well, the Latino vote came out and danced, but it certainly didn't swing. It didn't move anybody. It really had no impact as far as I can tell from the figures that have come out. We did come out at around 20% of the electorate and it indicates to me that however, it was crucial to maintaining Dinkin's dignified loss. He got 60% of the vote. Mayor Dinkin is the incumbent as opposed to Republican Rudolph Giuliani who got around 38% of the Latino vote, which is less than what he expected. Certainly Latino vote in New York City turned out along the party lines and that is being Democrats. The majority of the votes here in New York City from the Latino population are of course from Puerto Ricans, and just as Blacks did, they voted along democratic lines.

Ivan, the interesting thing about Miami is that there is this generational split where you have younger Cubans going for the non-Cuban candidate and you have the older Cubans going for the Cuban candidate. This shows a lot about the complexity in this particular case of the Latino Cuban vote. Do you think that people are picking up on that down in Miami?

Definitely so. I mean, you could say there's a generational divide in which younger Cubans, for instance, would not go for these ethnic appeals that have been so common here in politics.

[interruption] Well, what kind of ethnic appeals are you talking about?

Well, basically Miriam Alonso and every Cuban politician you can think of was on the radio saying, "This seat belongs to us. We can't let this seat slip out of our hands." And one thing is to say that we deserve representation with the majority, and another thing is to say that the seat belongs to us because that was the kind of message that was rejected by Puerto Ricans and Nicaraguans who were saying, "Wait a minute, you're excluding everybody else. Why should I vote for somebody who is going to be so exclusive?"

Do both of you agree with the conventional wisdom that's being talked about, that this election was very bad news for the Clinton Administration and for the Democrats in general or are you a little bit more skeptical?

I don't agree with it. I think that this has nothing to do with the Clinton presidency. It's too early on in his administration. This is only his 10th month in office. We have to remember that neither Whitman in New Jersey or Giuliani in New York received a mandate. It was only 2% in each instance. So, there is clearly, it's not a mandate anywhere. I think people looked at the local issues and certainly our community voted as such. I mean you can stretch this and say that Clinton did have an effect and that the Latino community listened to the President, so that argument could be made also.

In Miami, that doesn't really apply because the race is not a partisan race. The dynamic happening here is mostly an anti-incumbency type of thing where voters seem to reject people who had either been at city hall before or who are currently in city hall, in favor of some newcomers that are giving them a struggle in the runoff next week. Here we have a different situation.

Well, thank you very much for joining us. Political analyst Gerson Borrero in New York and Ivan Roman of El Nuevo Herald in Miami. Muchas gracias.

In the aftermath of the defeat of New York City's first Black mayor incumbent, David Dinkins, Latino leaders in that city are beginning to assess the significance of Mayor-elect Rudolph Giuliani's election for their communities. As the transition period proceeds, both critics and supporters of Republican Giuliani are keeping a watchful eye as to how he might address Latino concerns. From New York, Mario Murillo reports.

New York City Mayor-elect Rudy Giuliani will take office in January, facing the same problems David Dinkins confronted in his four years as mayor, a massive budget deficit, high unemployment, an education system in crisis, and a crime problem that won't go away. Giuliani will also be facing an uneasy Latino electorate which overwhelming voted in favor of his Democratic opponent.

He's going to have to really demonstrate despite the fact that he has a good number of Latinos around him as part of his campaign that he's going to have to work hard at reaching our community.

Angelo Falcon is President of the Institute for Puerto Rican Policy, a nonpartisan think take that explores issues affecting the Latino community. According to its statistics, Giuliani won the election, attracting only 27% of the Latino vote, down from the 33% he received in 1989. Falcon says Giuliani must avoid making some of the same mistakes of his predecessors when dealing with the Latino community.

One of the problems that Dinkins had, and I think any mayor is going to have, is that particularly dealing with Latino issues is that a lot of people don't understand the level of poverty and the level of problems. When I tell people that the poverty rate in the Puerto Rican community is higher than that in the African American community, a lot of people don't believe it.

Latino leaders are looking at three areas and measuring Giuliani's response to their concerns, his appointments, how he handles the police department, and his economic development agenda. One of the people making sure Giuliani doesn't overlook these concerns is Sada Vidal, Co-Chair of Dominicans for Giuliani and a member of the Meyaro Transition Team. Vidal says Giuliani got off to a good start by first asking every political appointment of Dinkins to step down.

The second is that his transition team will be reflective of New York City. We're included in that, and we know that he will include us. He's already doing so. By using our voice and our strengths, we know that we'll be able to build a government that will respond to the needs of our community.

But critics of Giuliani are concerned about what they call "business as usual" in the transition process.

One of our problems is that every time there's an election, we have sectors of our community that swear that the messiah has come, and are quick to denounce anything except accomodation-ism.

National Congress of Puerto Rican Rights spokesperson, Richie Perez, points to certain Latino members of the Giuliani transition team as evidence of a Conservative agenda being followed by the Mayor-elect.

These are people whose views are relative to the Right of Center, who have opposed a number of initiatives supported by the entire community and education. For example, HIV/AIDs curriculum in the public schools.

Another issue of concern is how Giuliani will deal with criminal justice and the police department. Some observers fear a Giuliani Administration would be insensitive to the issue of biased crimes against Latinos. Others express concern about how the former prosecutor would deal with police brutality, especially against the Latino and African American communities. Richie Perez recalled one moment during the campaign which he says may be an indication of things to come under a Guilani Administration.

We were asking him to respond to the firebombing of a home in Howard Beach, where he has a lot of constituents, where he got a lot of votes. We wanted him to go out there and speak on racial healing and harmony to his constituents. There's a major contradiction with being a candidate campaigning on safety and crime issues, and not speaking on biased crime and the safety of people to be free from buying a home in an area and getting bombed because they're Puerto Rican.

Yet supporters of Giuliani say he's been unfairly characterized as insensitive. They believe Giuliani will make the streets of New York safe by applying a strong law and order approach to crime across the board. Apaulinal Trinidal of Dominicans for Giuliani says that for him, this was the most important thing in the election.

I've been active in the community for many years, and I saw the condition of life in New York City, particularly in my neighborhood in Washington Heights, deteriorate and it was shocking to me, up to the point where my son was afraid to walk in the streets. When the pardon is confronted with our reality and you have a government that the only thing they'll find is excuses, and don't want to accept responsibility for the conditions which exist in our barrio, I say, this is enough.

So far, there have been mixed signals from the Guilani team. Immediately after his election night victory, he met with leaders of the Latino community, including Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer, the highest Latino elected official in New York City. At the same time, he failed to initially make contact with representatives Jose Serano and Nidia Velasquez, Puerto Rican Congress members with a strong base in the community. Nevertheless, it's just a matter of time before we can see if the forecast, both supportive and critical of Giuliani, come true. For Latino USA, I'm Mario Murillo in New York.