MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Puerto Rican governor wants referendum on island's status.

Puerto Rican Gov. Anibal Acevedo Vila offered a bill Friday calling for a referendum to decide a procedure for resolving the political status of the island, which is currently a U.S. commonwealth.

Under his proposal, Puerto Ricans would go to the polls July 10 to choose between two options for deciding the status issue: another plebiscite or the convening of a constitutional assembly.

Acevedo, who took office last month after winning a tight election involving recounts and court battles, told a press conference at his office that the bill was a way of living up to his "commitment to address the status situation and to put the decisions in the hands of the people of Puerto Rico." Of the two options to be placed before voters in the proposed July referendum, the one mandating a plebiscite envisions a ballot that includes the choices of statehood, independence or remaining a U.S. Free Associated State.

The alternative is an assembly of no more than 100 delegates representing a cross-section of both Puerto Rican society and of opinion on the island's future. The governor did not specify how the delegates would be chosen.

"Said assembly would have to deliver a final report on the proposal or proposals about the political relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States that would be taken to the (U.S.) president and Congress for their consideration and implementation," according to the governor's bill.

Acevedo, whose Popular Democratic Party favors continuation of Puerto Rico's commonwealth status, said he had already written President George W. Bush to explain the referendum plan and ask for support.

The Caribbean island's current identity as a Free Associated considerable - albeit not complete - domestic autonomy and the right to send a non-voting delegate to Congress while leaving foreign policy in Washington's hands.

Puerto Ricans have ratified commonwealth status in referendums held in 1967, 1993 and 1998.

Acevedo triumphed in the November election by a razor-thin margin over former two-term Gov. Pedro Rossello of the pro-statehood New Progressive Party. The small Puerto Rican Independence Party received only 2.67 percent of the vote, below the threshold needed to remain a registered party.