Two years ago yesterday, then-president Manuel Zelaya was taken from his home, put on a plane, and flown out of Honduras as the military temporarily took control of the government. An interim president served until the election of current president Porfirio Lobo Sosa in November of the same year.
Was this a coup? Depends on who you ask.
Manuel Zelaya was part of the Partido Liberal de Honduras, a left-of-center political party that enjoyed the following of most poorer urbanites and rural folks. For a number of reasons, Zelaya was probing the political waters for the purpose of extending presidential term limits. The Constitution of Honduras says a president can only serve one term of four years. The Constitution also references that any president trying to change the Constitution can be formally impeached by an order from the Supreme Court of Honduras.
Manuel Zelaya had not officially moved to change the constitution when he was removed from the country. Instead, he was simply proposing a referendum that would allow any citizen of Honduras the ability to change the constitution. Very fishy, everyone said. Zelaya must have that term limit article on his brain.
Thus, the Supreme Court condemned the measure, and sent the military to remove Zelaya from the country. This was not exactly the way the Constitution had defined the proceedings for impeachment.
People who say that it was a coup that violated Honduran democracy are part of the Resistencia (the Resistance). These former Liberal Party supporters do not view current President Lobo as legitimate and maintain loyalty to Zelaya. People who may or may not have supported the removal of Zelaya, but who perceive President Lobo's administration as legitimate are called Golpistas (Coup-ists).
A month ago, an agreement was signed between President Lobo and ex-President Zelaya that allowed the latter to return to the country. When he did, a giant rally was held at the airport here in Tegucigalpa to welcome him home.
Several people have told me that Honduras has a new political conscience, one that does not so trust the words of any one leader. Any democracy that bases political success upon the debate of the issues, not the personalities of the politicians, has acquired a new degree of health. How difficult this is in our current media-inundated society!!!
Anyone who has a different read on the Honduras political crisis let me know. I, like every other person, is still trying to define what happened two years ago.
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