List of mayors of Ponce, Puerto Rico
# Name In Office Position Held Political Party
1 Pedro Sánchez de Mathos 1692 - 1701 Teniente a guerra N/A
2 Dámaso de Toro 1701 - 1706 Teniente a guerra N/A
3 Aurelio Juan Ramírez de Arellano 1706 - 1710 Teniente a guerra N/A
4 Joseph de Toro 1710 - ? Teniente a guerra N/A
5 Francisco Ortíz de la Renta 1766 Teniente a guerra N/A
18th century
This is a list of mayors of Ponce, Puerto Rico's southern economic center, the island's second largest and second most important city. From 1692 to 1840, the office of mayor in Ponce was filled either by local hacendados or by military officers appointed by the governor, depending on whether the political situation on Spain at the time was that of a constitutional or an absolutist government. From 1840 to 1870, mayors were oftentimes elected by the municipal council, whose members were called regidores. In 1870, political parties were created for the first time and municipal officials were elected by the people at large, and the mayor, as well as the members of the municipal council, would belong to one of the two parties active, either the Partido Liberal Reformista or the Partido Incondicional Español. With the advent of the American political system in Puerto Rico after the American invasion of 1898, the mayor was elected by popular vote, which is the system still (2019) in place. Ponce's first mayor was Don Pedro Sánchez de Mathos, in 1692, appointed by governor Juan Robles de Lorenzana. Ponce elected its first mayor (as well as its first Municipal Assembly) on 20 September 1812. Its first elected mayor was José Ortiz de la Renta, who took office in 1812. Ortiz de la Renta occupied the post of mayor on eight different occasions between 1812 and 1846. The current mayor of Ponce is María Mayita Meléndez Altieri, from the New Progressive Party, elected in 2008. She became the first woman elected to the office of mayor by the people of Ponce in its extensive political history. She is also the first mayor of a party other than the Popular Democratic Party in Ponce since 1989, when Rafael Churumba Cordero Santiago won the elections and took the oath of office that same year.