The PRD-majority Senate has voted to replace another of its members. The new senator-elect is Roberto Rodriguez, who although elected to the Senate in 2002 to represent the province of El Seibo chose not to accept the seat because the government post he occupied as director of the nationwide aqueducts department was presumably more convenient. In 2002, Rodriguez was replaced by Marcial Valera, who has now resigned to return the post to Rodriguez.
As reported in Hoy newspaper, Rodriguez is a prominent member of the Proyecto Presidencial Hipolito (PPH), the group that backed the political aspirations of former President Hipolito Mejia.
The El Seibo senator will become the second prominent official of the Mejia government to enter Congress, following in the footsteps of the former director of the Supervisory Office of Public Works director, Hernani Salazar, who is now the senator for the province of Duarte.