President Leonel Fernández vetoed the changing of the name of the Las Americas International Airport, the principal Dominican passenger port of entry. Congress has passed a bill that changes of name of the terminal to that of Dr. José Francisco Peña Gómez, in honor of the late long time Dominican Partido Revolucionario Dominicano politician. The veto keeps going after his death the controversy that was so much part of the life of the politician who died this year of cancer of the stomach while being his party’s candidate to Mayor of Santo Domingo. Peña Gómez was candidate to the presidency several times, Mayor of Santo Domingo, president of the International Socialist organization and was known for his extensive international contacts and many travels abroad. Congress recently approved the bill changing the name of the airport, but President Leonel Fernández argues that the name commemorates the Dominican Republic as gateway to the Americas and the cradle of the New World. The highway leading to the airport is also known as Avenida de las Americas. In the comments that accompany the veto President Leonel Fernández suggests adding the name of Juan Pablo Duarte, the leader of the independence movement against Haiti in 1844, to the Las Americas name. PRD congressmen that are majority in both houses of Congress, and are expected to override the veto. Santo Domingo Senator Milagros Ortiz Bosch defended the change of the name arguing that New York’s airport honors John F. Kennedy and Paris’s airport Charles De Gaulle. The day’s poll in the Listín Diario shows that 77% or 2,415 persons called in to say the name should not be changed. Some 731 (23%) called up in favor of the name change. The veto adds to the differences between the Executive Branch and the PRD majority Congress.
