The Coup That Isn't

When is a coup d’etat… not really a coup d’etat? Beyond the superficial details of President Manuel Zelaya’s ouster, the situation in Honduras is far more complicated than it seems.

On June 28th, under the cover of darkness, President Manuel Zelaya was whisked out of the country by members of the armed forces and replaced. His supporters rallied to the streets, confronting soldiers and demanding the reinstatement of their democratically-elected leader. Smells like your typical Latin American coup, and this is certainly how many mainstream media outlets have been reporting it. Most governments have reacted much the same way, with President Obama asserting that “the coup was not legal.” Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez reacted fiercely to the news, asserting that he would “bring… down” any new government. But wait – when is a coup d’etat… not really a coup d’etat? Beyond the superficial details of Zelaya’s ouster, the situation in Honduras is far more complicated than it seems. The Honduran Constitution states in Article 239 that no President can be elected to more than one term. It also states that any citizen who seeks to change the article needs to resign his or her public office. Moreover, Article 42, Section 5 of the Constitution states that promoting the re-election of the President is grounds for the revocation of citizenship. Thus, when President Manuel Zelaya emulated his good friend Hugo Chavez by attempting to hold a referendum on whether the President should be able to hold more than one term, the Supreme Court of Honduras ruled it unconstitutional. Zelaya pressed ahead anyhow, firing the country’s top general for refusing to facilitate the vote, then refusing to reinstate him as per yet another Supreme Court ruling. Then the Honduran Congress got involved, expressing its opposition to the President by passing a law forbidding referenda within 180 days of the next general election – something that should have ruled out Zelaya’s hope for a vote on the matter. The coup demonstrates a major flaw in Honduras’ constitution – there is no clear process through which a President can be removed from power. In other words, there is no mechanism for impeachment. When President Zelaya decided to proceed with the referendum, a Supreme Court justice signed a detention order on June 26th authorizing the military to detain the President on charges of treason and abuse of authority. As a result, some Hondurans argue that the coup was no coup at all, that what transpired was perfectly in line with the rule of law. One video of a large Honduran street protest features a demonstrator holding a sign reading, “CNN – report to the world that there is no coup in Honduras” while others chant “long live democracy” in the background. These demonstrators argue that the military upheld the constitution, and that opposition from the Supreme Court, the Congress, the electoral tribunal and the country’s Attorney General should have been enough to prevent the President from acting. Barring this, they say, the only other route to removing Zelaya from power for violating the constitution was to charge the military to do it. So is it a coup? Well, it’s hard to tell, especially since the military hasn’t assumed any additional powers since Zelaya’s removal, the Congress has already appointed its speakers as the new President, and there are legitimate arguments to be made that what happened was perfectly constitutional. Even President Obama’s lawyers are having a tough time nailing down a term to describe what happened in Honduras, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has held off from formally declaring it a coup. Perhaps “military impeachment” will suffice?