SANTO DOMINGO.- President Leonel Fernandez yesterday removed from the Dominican Port Authority (Apordom) the controversial Jose Francisco Peña Guaba, whose previous tenures in the Price Control Institute and the National Lottery were marked by scandal.  

The measure may signal the first chasm in the political alliance of Fernandez’s ruling PLD party with several minority organizations, including Peña Guaba’s Institutional Social Democrat Block (BIS), credited with contributing around 3.5 percent of the votes in the presidential 2008 election.

In the last few weeks media reports affirm that the BIS leader would forge an alliance with the opposition PRD party, whose late leader Jose Francisco Peña Gomez was the father of Peña Guaba, designated “Assistant” to Fernandez via decree.

Other designations via Decree 512 include Freddy Perez as head of the Santo Domingo Aqueduct and Sewage System Corporation (Caasd), replacing Ramon Rivas, who will now head the National Lottery, while Decree 501-10 appoint the political leaders Rafaela Alburquerque and Alexandra Izquierdo as Cabinet level Ministers “Without Portfolio.”