On Sunday, in the midst of the media hysteria over Michael Jackson’s demise, the president of Honduras was escorted aboard an airplane, still wearing his pajamas, and told to leave the country.
The headlines around the world read more or less “Leftist President Manuel Zelaya ousted in military coup in Honduras”. The political situation in Latin America tends to suffer oversimplification abroad, so here’s an attempt to look a little at the causes and effects that led to the current events in Honduras. (For more detail, BBC does a good job of presenting the whole story here)
President Zelaya had for some time insisted on a referendum to reform the constitution of the country. Since narrowly winning the presidential election in 2006, Zalaya has aligned himself with the region’s recent crop of hard leftist leaders led by Venezuela’s Chávez, such as Ecuador, Nicaragua and Bolivia, as opposed to the moderate left seen in Brazil and Chile.
Following Chávez’s playbook of changing the constitution as a first step to consolidating power, Zelaya has pushed for constitutional reform with a view to extend term limits. The Honduran Congress, the Supreme Court, the attorney general and the electoral council all opposed a referendum, citing that it to be illegal according to the current constitution. In fact, the constitution calls for the deposition of any leader trying to subvert the Magna Carta. Citing the same concerns, the chief of the armed forces refused to participate in the distribution of ballots, (which were flown in from Venezuela by the Venezuelan Air Force!!!) upon which Zelaya sacked him and proceeded to charge ahead with the referendum.
On June 28, the day of the doomed referendum, Zelaya was detained in his home by soldiers acting on orders from the Supreme Court and promptly exiled without bloodshed. The president of the National Congress Roverto Micheletti (of Zelaya’s same party) assumed the presidency until new elections can be held presumably.
Although Zalaya was in contempt of the Constitution and the other bodies of government, his ouster was a rash decision and not a good solution to an essentially legal problem. The coup has been condemned all around the world, and rightly so. Zelaya should be allowed to return, but to face charges for violating the constitution so he can be properly impeached, not ousted in the banana republic style of the past.
What Zelaya attempted to do was to go down the road Chávez set forth 8 years ago, when after forcing through a referendum on the constitution, he dissolved congress and added seats to the national assembly in order to dominate it. The Supreme court followed, stacked with loyalists until Chávez controlled every branch of government, in a classic example of using democracy to subvert it.
In a recent referendum to change the constitution again, to allow more radical economic reforms, his plan was rejected by many of his own followers and was defeated. However, using powers to rule by decree granted him by the National Assembly, many of the items were made into law, sidestepping the constitution. When opposition leaders recently gained key mayoral positions, Chávez simply created a new political figures above them, usurping their authority and budgets.
The tinpot dictatorships of yesterday has been replaced by authoritarian states ruled by a supreme leader, masquerading as democracies by holding all sorts of elections and referendums, courting public opinion abroad (usually by opposing the U.S.) while suppressing dissent internally. The drama in Iran is a typical example.
Zelaya should perhaps have looked to Niger’s president, Mamadou Tandja, who dissolved today his country’s Constitutional Court, which had been opposed to Tandja’s referendum proposal to modify the constitution in order to extend term limits. Earlier in May he dissolved the parliament for having opposed him on the matter.
It’s not strange that the members of the Honduran government wanted to nip Zelaya’s experiment in the bud. It’s ultimately a matter of political survival, as in the so-called “socialism of the 21st century” there is no place for plurality, just like last century’s version.
Lastly, let me recommend Venezuelan blogger Daniel Duquenal’s excellent post on the issue.
