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Honduran coup; impeachment on steroids?
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AP Photo/Esteban Felix
The President of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya was unseated from power Sunday and "escorted" out of the country by the military.
The action has been condemned around the world, including by the Obama administration, which has demanded the return of Zelaya to power. It's been billed as the first coup in Latin America in 16 years.
It looks to me to be a very bad, but perhaps justifiable, substitute for impeachment. President Zelaya was coming up on the end of his four-year term in January. The Honduran constitution does not allow a second presidential term. Zelaya was trying to overturn that in a referendum that was to be held the day of the coup. The Honduran constitution forbids that particular clause from being changed. Both the Supreme court and the Attorney General declared the proposal illegal. But Zelaya pushed ahead.
What would happen to a President of the United States who ignored a Supreme Court ruling and the findings of his own Attorney General? Ideally, the Supreme Court would be obeyed by those who would have conducted the election, even if not by the person or persons who called for it. There would be impeachment hearings and maybe a year later, the perpetrator would be out of office.
Honduras either lacks the ability to enforce separation of powers, lacks an impeachment system, or the parties involved were simply too impatient to wait for the paperwork. It should be noted that although gunfire was reported, there is currently no report of any deaths involved in the coup.
The military and the judiciary may have committed a technical foul here, but I want to hear more about the why before I make a judgment on the how.
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