Honduras Defending Constitution: Constitutional Succession – Defending Democracy
Posted on June 30, 2009
by Maggie at Maggie’s Notebook
In researching the events taking place in Honduras, I see President Obama immediately cited the outster of President Manuel Zeyala as “not legal.” Another “gird your loins” moment for the American President. The question is: was this a coup d’etat or a constitutional succession?
Constitutional Succession – Roberto MichelettiWhy did the Supreme Court rule that ousted President Manuel Zelaya was subverting the rule of law in Honduras? Why did Congress rule the same?
Zelaya’s term of office ends in 2010. He called for a “controversial referendum” to take place on June 28th. The referendum, if approved, would have made changes to the Honduran Constitution to allow Zelaya to run for office for another term, an action the Supreme Court says is not lawful.
While Honduran law allows for a constitutional rewrite, the power to open that door does not lie with the president. A constituent assembly can only be called through a national referendum approved by its Congress.
But Mr. Zelaya declared the vote on his own and had Mr. Chávez ship him the necessary ballots from Venezuela. The Supreme Court ruled his referendum unconstitutional, and it instructed the military not to carry out the logistics of the vote as it normally would do.
After the Supreme Court declared the referendum not lawful, Zelaya vowed to hold a vote on the referendum anyway. Zelaya dismissed “the military chief,” Romeo Vasquez, who opposed Zelaya’s position on the referendum. The Supreme Court asked that Vazquez be reinstated. Zelaya refused.
So on Thursday he [Zelaya] led a mob that broke into the military installation where the ballots from Venezuela were being stored and then had his supporters distribute them in defiance of the Supreme Court’s order.
The attorney general had already made clear that the referendum was illegal, and he further announced that he would prosecute anyone involved in carrying it out. Yesterday, Mr. Zelaya was arrested by the military and is now in exile in Costa Rica.
The Supreme Court voted to remove Zelaya “to defend the rule of law.”
The Honduran Congress later swore in its leader, Roberto Micheletti, as the new head of state after voting to remove Mr. Zelaya for “manifest [irregular] conduct” and “putting in present danger the state of the law.”
Micheletti said that the orders carried out as issued by the Supreme Court and the Congress “was not a coup d’etat, but a constitutional succession.”
The new government’s foreign minister, Enrique Otez Colindres said the new government looks forward to meeting with OAS officials:
…so they can realize that this is a government that respects all laws and the only thing it did was to remove a president for systematically violating the constitution.
Manuel Zelaya was elected as a conservative. He has progressively moved away from that position and cemented relationships with Cuba’s Castros, Venezuela’s Chavez and Bolivia’s Morales. As Wall Street Journal writer, O’Grady said, it is not “about left-right politics.”
It is about defending the independence of institutions that keep presidents from becoming dictators.
So how do the Honduran people feel about the ouster? The Latin Business Chronicle says that Honduran business support the Supreme Court and Micheletti’s new government:
It is extremely popular,” says Jacqueline Foglia Sandoval, former president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Honduras. “I don’t know of any one who isn’t celebrating.”
[The attempted referendum] followed three years of Zelaya policies that were seen as arbitrary and often hurting business, Foglia Sandoval says.
Over the last three years, our ex president had created political and social chaos,” she says. “He [was] very unpredictable and many times [imposed] arbitrary actions that …affected the business climate.
The Latin Business Chronical reports that wage hikes smacked of socialism and resulted in the loss of 150,000 jobs.
[Zeyala] in December to raise the minimum wage by 60 percent despite that unions had demanded 20 to 30 percent and employers had countered with zero to 10 percent.
Not only did he exceed the union demands, but also imposed the new laws as companies already had their 2009 budgets ready, Foglia Sandoval points out. As a results some 150,000 jobs were lost during the past six months, she says.
Another concern was his talk about implementing socialism of the 21st century, modeled on Venezuela. “People associate socialism with ration cards, with lines, with the things we do not want,” Foglia Sandoval says. “It’s a poor country, but we don’t have rationing, or lack of mobility, or have to ask permission for moving.” Further issues raised by the business community is the lack of security, which Sandoval said Zelaya completely ignored. Drug trafficking is growing and people fear for their personal safety. Foreign investment has diminished, and Zelaya’s treatment of foreign oil companies was considered “hostile.”
In January 2007, Zelaya announced plans to temporarily assume control of oil terminals and restrict imports of oil to one company in an effort to reduce fuel prices. However, after the US Embassy in Honduras warned that the takeover would have serious consequences, the government reversed its position on the terminals.
Fogliz Sandoval said relations with the U.S. were “worsening.”
The people of Honduras are standing to protect their Constitution. This is a hallelujah moment for Democracy.
President Obama has said that the ouster of Manuel Zelaya was “not legal.” Obama has said the U.S. will “stand on the side of democracy.” He has said nothing about the legality of Zelaya subverting the Honduran Constitution. That is the issue. If a democratic election is held, and then the one democratically elected attempts to take over the government illegally – then why are we not talking about that?
Rudi Stettner at Rant Rave looked at the differences in Obama’s handling of the Iranian election and the Honduran succession and summed it up this way:
One thing that was established in the Honduran coup. When there is a “progressive” consensus, Obama will quickly find his voice. Since Islamic radicals are the fascists that liberals love, a blind eye will be turned to their sins.
» Filed Under Barack Obama, Elections, Foreign Policy, News, Socialism
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5 Responses to “Honduras Defending Constitution: Constitutional Succession – Defending Democracy”
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Thank you.
Bravo to the people of Honduras for standing up for their Constitution. Perhaps Obama and the like are afraid that this defending of democracy will be catching.
Zelaya broke every law in the country. He began breaking the Constitutional Law by not presenting to National Congress the Honduras’ General Budget for fiscal year 2009, due in September 2008, and at the time he was constitutionally removed the budget had not been submitted to Congress.
Why did he not present a budget? He was manipulating and twisting arms of anyone on his way, specifically the Honduras’ Congress, Supreme Court and Army. Zelaya did not deliver cash from the national treasure to Congress, to pay congressman and congresswoman, for three (3) consecutive months.
Many focus on Article No. 239 to legally support Zelaya’s constitutional ousting; however, his constitutional crimes start with Article No. 2, please read below:
Article No. 2: Sovereignty of the people from which emanates all powers are exercised by representation. Imposture of popular sovereignty and the usurping of power are
classified as crimes of treason; the liability in such cases is imprescriptibly and may be deducted automatically or at the request of any citizen.
Zelaya did not recognized peoples’ sovereignty representation in the other two democratic constitutional powers (Legislative and Judiciary), he though the executive branch was all mighty, encouraged by all the backing he was getting from Dictator Hugo Chavez and the Castro Brothers, and, as by doing so, Zelaya committed a crime of treason.
An example of him not recognizing the other two powers was his disobedience to the ruling from a judge against his proposal to carry out a Peoples Consult (First Executive Decree), not a referendum, to establish a Constitutional Assembly to reform the 1982 Honduran Constitution, he and his cabinet appeal getting the same response. You judge if this is a complete disrespect and disregard of the Judiciary.
Such actions can be deduct automatically, and as these crimes do not prescribe before the Honduran Rule of Law, Zelaya, therefore, still has a pending trial, furthermore, such trial can be requested by any citizen who considered himself or herself an honest and patriotic Honduran.
Article No. 239: A citizen who becomes president of the Executive Branch cannot be reelected as president or as presidential designee of the Executive Branch. Anyone who violates this provision or PROPOSES a reform, and those who support it directly or indirectly, immediately cease in their public duties, and will be disqualified for ten years to exercise any public function.
All Zelaya’s followers argue that he did not want to remain one more day after his constitutional term in office, as he had repeated it again and again, a lie that his Venezuelan Master Hugo Chavez carry out to destroy Venezuela’s democracy. Zelaya also a pathological liar argue that he only wanted to do “simple” reforms to the Constitution in those articles that do not allow a more socially fair and democratic society.
However, Zelaya put himself above the Law when he violated the provision in this article and also conspire to reform it. The evidence, Zelaya unilaterally published a second Executive Decree called “Opinion Poll to Establish a Constitutional Assembly” in the Government of Honduras Official News Paper (La Gaceta) Friday night June 26th, triggering the events of June 28th.
When he argued that his opinion poll was no-binding with the proposal of establishing a Constitutional Assembly to reform the Constitution, if fact it was, his decree title says so and the content of it is also strong evidence that is was binding. The OAS and the hypocrite International Community should come to Honduras to check this evidence.
At the moment of Zelaya’s capture, he was no longer president of Honduras, as you can read from the above, violating this specific provision or only by proposing to reform Article 239 anyone would immediately ceased being president, in fact Congress and the Supreme Court were benevolent to all of Zelaya’s earlier transgressions, naïve or incompetent.
Many political and religious leaders told Zelaya not to continue with his proposal, the US Ambassador told him not to, but he was so filled of himself and highly motivated by his lavish advisors, many were expecting him to change his position and finish his term, but he was blinded, full of power and continue doing so, with the consequences we all know.
Now, the International Community is pushing back into power a crook (50 million Lempiras were taken out in a cart from the Honduran Central Bank to finance the opinion poll and 500 million Lempiras were used to paid the media campaign for his project), a drug abuser (his close friends and relatives say he is a drug user, there are other witnesses also), a megalomaniac (the man though he was almighty and invulnerable, in his mind he was out of reach from the long arm of the law) and a traitor (there are plenty evidences that he had a very close relationship with Hugo Chavez, a sworn enemy of the US).
Finally, a highly concerning truth is that helping Zelaya means providing support to Chavez, if Zelaya does not come back or he does to face trial; Chavez will have has his Waterloo in Honduras.
Hector, thank you for your two comments. I appreciate your taking the time to lay out this information. It seems that Micheletti and the Congress are going to stand strong. I hope they have their ear to the ground and are prepared for all events. It looks like Obama has backed off insisting that Zelaya be placed back in office. It is inspiring that Honduras has been able to brave the international criticism, and I hope as you say, this might be the end of Chavez. The Venezuelan people need to take their country back.
Again thank you for this. I would like to post your reply on my blog, Maggie’s Notebook. Would you take a look and let me know if this would be permissible? There is a search box in the top left corner and if you enter zelaya and micheletti, it will bring up what I have previously written.
http://maggiesnotebook.blogspot.com,
maggiesnotebook@cox.net