The president of the Partido Revolucionario Dominicano (PRD), Enmanuel Esquea Guerrero warned that any PRD member that supports an eventual candidacy of Hector Rafael Peguero Méndez for president of the Chamber of Deputies will be expelled from the party. Peguero Méndez, at present president of the Chamber of Deputies, was expelled on Tuesday from the party for not obeying party guidelines. The party, which will be majority in both legislative chambers as of 16 August, had already announced the presidents of both the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies. Hector Peguero Méndez would have liked to be re-elected to the post and had suggested he would present his candidacy in the 16 August election of the presidents of the chambers. Orlando Gil, a political commentator for Hoy newspaper, says that Hector Peguero Méndez was not expelled for what he has done but for what he could do. During the same meeting in which the Political Commission of the PRD chose to expel Peguero Méndez, the party requested that its congressmen take a leave of absence from congressional sessions. Nevertheless, 22 PRD legislators, most re-elected, chose to attend the next work session, disregarding the notification and in apparent challenge to the leadership of the party. Méndez has preferred to not comment on his expulsion. The secretary general of the Partido de la Liberación Dominicana (PLD), Lidio Cadet said that the doors of the PLD are open to Peguero Méndez. Likewise, the president of the Senate, Amable Aristy Castro, of the Partido Reformista Social Cristiano (PRSC), invited the former PRD member to incorporate to the board of the PRSC.
