President Manuel Zelaya brought this upon himself by his disregard for process and rule of law.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090626/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_honduras_constitution
There were some particularly interesting quotes from the article above.
"Under Honduran law, soldiers are normally responsible for distributing ballots ahead of elections, but the military leadership has opposed the vote. Zelaya has fired the military chief for refusing to support the referendum and vows to ignore a Supreme Court ruling ordering him reinstated."
"Congress — led by members of Zelaya's own Liberal Party — has opened an investigation into his mental stability and could declare him unfit to govern."
"It followed a series of clearly unconstitutional moves on Zelaya's part, including his attempt to unilaterally remove the chief of the army, which, according to Honduras's Constitution, can only be done by a congressional super-majority. "Zelaya broke the law and put himself above all other insitutions.
"Congress cannot investigate me, much less remove me or stage a technical coup against me because I am honest, I'm a free president and nobody scares me."He believes himself above the law.
"The Supreme Court, Congress and the attorney general have all said the referendum he is sponsoring is illegal because the constitution says some of its clauses cannot be changed."
"The constitution, approved in 1982 as Honduras was throwing off two decades of nearly uninterrupted military rule, states that any politician who promotes presidential re-election will be barred from public service for 10 years."
The constitution prevents a strongman from developing at least through legal and constitutional means.
The other side of this matter is the complaints of a "rigged system" in Honduras. As in many third world countries, there are huge inequalities in power, wealth, and income. However, these moves by Zelaya do not move Honduras in the right direction. Zelaya was following the typical pattern of a dictator in the making. (much like his ally, Hugo Chavez) of undermining other institutions. This continues until arbitrary and unchecked power is vested in one man or a small group of people. The power of a charismatic leader to undermine institutions for some stated noble goal can be substantial. Sometimes this happens through the consent of an unwary people, while at other times substantial irregularities in electoral process do not reflect what the voters actually want. In either case, this power must be checked before it is too late and no other functioning institutions are left to contend with executive power. Term limits are one attempt to prevent the accumulation of power in one man or branch of government. It is inadvisable to entrust so much power to one man and one institution regardless of how noble he says his purposes are and how great some people think he is.
2 comments:
Getting buy-in to any process is hard, but necessary for the orderly functioning of any organization, whether a government, business, NGO, etc. We mustn't forget, however, that processes were created for people, and by people, and sometimes, when the greater good is being disrespected, we need a new process. In the end, it comes down to ethics: when is it acceptable, even necessary, to go against the prevailing order of things?
I think you have a valid concern, but I have two points that undercut that in this particular situation.
1. I agree that the processes were created for people and by people, and sometimes radical change is necessary by disregarding the old rules and perhaps by revolution. The evidence I have seen so far is that the people (at least a substantial majority) are not for change in this form.
2. Even if the people were for this change, there needs to be new institutions created or old ones reworked rather than having an all-powerful executive like Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.
The Founders including Jefferson wrote about revolution, and I would do well to go back to those writings.
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