On October 15, 1998, the PPD's Government Board adopted a proposal based on reclaiming the sovereignty. Despite being unrefined, this marked the first time that a non-territorial formula became the institutional position of the PPD. Mayors Cordero Santiago, Miranda Marín (Caguas) and José Aponte de la Torre (Carolina) were instrumental in the adoption of this definition. However, the following months brought internal controversy between the members of the free association movement within the PPD due to a second status referendum being organized by the Rosselló administration. The older leaders decided to avoid testing their newly adopted definition in a PNP-mechanism without the time for it to become widely accepted, instead supporting a vote for the "None of the above" option. However, the younger members of the faction, including Luis Vega Ramos, Jorge Colberg Toro and Néstor Duprey, decided to request the $500,000 assigned to defend the definition of free association included in it, despite not entirely agreeing with the conditions included. Angel Ortiz Guzmán decided to contest the definition of free association, but was unable to derail the process. In the end, most liberals within the PPD fell in line with the official position and voted for "None of the above". While "free association" only gathered 4,536 votes, it still fared favorably against the "territorial Commonwealth" option, which only received 993 votes.
