San Juan (Puerto Rico), Jan 2 (AP) Jenniffer Gonzalez Colon was sworn in Thursday as Puerto Rico's new governor as the island prepared for a normally ebullient ceremony overshadowed by widespread anger over a blackout that hit the US territory days ago.

Gonzalez, a Republican who backs President-elect Donald Trump and whose pro-statehood New Progressive Party secured a historic third consecutive term after she won the November 5 election, has pledged to stabilize the Caribbean island's crumbling power grid.

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Before the start of a ceremony in front of Puerto Rico's seaside Capitol to celebrate her swearing in, Gonzalez attended Mass surrounded by family and supporters.

“What better than to come first to thank God and to ask God to give me the wisdom, the fortitude and the tools to fulfil everything I promised the people of Puerto Rico,” she told reporters.

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Gonzalez has promised to appoint an energy “czar” to review potential contractual breaches while another operator is found to possibly replace Luma Energy, a private company that oversees the transmission and distribution of power in Puerto Rico.

However, no contract can be cancelled without prior approval from Puerto Rico's Energy Bureau and a federal control board that oversees the island's finances.

Outages were still being reported on Thursday as crews tried to stabilise the grid following the blackout that hit early Tuesday, leaving 1.3 million customers in the dark as Puerto Ricans prepared for New Year's Eve.

While electricity had been restored to 98.9 per cent of 1.47 million total customers, more than 600,000 were temporarily left without power on New Year's when part of the system collapsed again, according to Luma.

“The stability of the system is fragile,” Luma said late Wednesday as it warned of more outages on Thursday given an ongoing lack of generation. “We know and understand how frustrating it is for our clients to be without service for long periods of time.”

Backup generators were put in place to ensure a smooth swearing-in ceremony on Thursday given that renowned musicians were scheduled to perform.

The anticipated revelry was characteristic of Gonzalez, a 48-year-old attorney and recent mother of twins who prior to the election showed up at her party's assembly wearing a Wonder Woman tiara and cuffs. She also made the news after peeling out of one of her party's conventions in an off-road vehicle earlier this year.

Gonzalez, of the pro-statehood New Progressive Party, had beat former Gov. Pedro Pierluisi during their party's primary in June.

At the time, she was Puerto Rico's representative in Congress and had run on Pierluisi's ticket four years ago.

After beating him, she won the November 5 general election with more than 526,000 votes, or 41 per cent. Trailing her was Juan Dalmau, who represented Puerto Rico's Independence Party and the Citizen Victory Movement.

It was the first time that the Popular Democratic Party, which supports the island's territorial status quo and is one of Puerto Rico's two main parties, came in third in a gubernatorial race.

While Gonzalez's immediate challenge is Puerto Rico's fragile power grid, she also inherits a feeble economy that has slowly been strengthening since the US territory's government declared in 2015 that it was unable to pay its more than USD 70 billion public debt load.

In 2017, it filed for the biggest US municipal bankruptcy in history.

All but one government agency has since restructured its debt, with Puerto Rico's Electric Power Authority still struggling to do so. It holds more than USD 9 billion in debt, the largest of any government agency.

Experts warn the island will keep struggling to attract investors until the debt is restructured and the power grid strengthened.

Gonzalez also will have to work alongside a federal control board that US Congress created in 2016 to oversee Puerto Rico's finances and supervise the ongoing reconstruction after Hurricane María slammed into the island in September 2017 as a powerful Category 4 storm, razing the electrical grid.

She also faces pressure to create affordable housing, lower power bills and the general cost of living, reduce violent crime, boost Puerto Rico's economy, with the island locked out of capital markets since 2015, and improve a limping health care system as thousands of doctors flock to the US mainland.

Like other governors of the pro-statehood party, Gonzalez has said she would push for Puerto Rico to become the 51st state, but such a change would require approval from US Congress and the US president.

A nonbinding referendum held during the November 5 election, the seventh of its kind, asked voters to choose one of three options: statehood, independence and independence with free association, under which issues like foreign affairs, US citizenship and use of the US dollar would be negotiated.

With 63 per cent of voters participating, statehood earned more than 615,000 votes, or 59 per cent, with independence coming in second for the first time with more than 309,000 votes, or 29 per cent. Independence with free association garnered more than 128,000 votes, or 12 per cent. (AP)

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