Responses to the Coup d'etat in Honduras on Sunday June 28, with special emphasis on producing English-language versions of commentaries by Honduran scholars and editorial writers and addressing the confusion encouraged by lack of basic knowledge about Honduras.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Couping The Coup

Congress committed another unconstitutional act when it voted this evening on a motion to again ratify its Decreto 141-2009, which removed Zelaya from office (not a power granted them by the constitution) and installed Mr. Micheletti as de facto president. The motion was introduced by the Nationalist party, which held a meeting this morning and agreed to vote as a block of 55 votes in favor of this motion. They only needed 9 Congressmen from another party to join them to block the restitution of Zelaya, but in fact the measure had substantial support from members of the Liberal Party as well. At 7:11 pm Tegucigalpa time, a simple majority of the Congressmen had voted for the motion, with the vote continuing.

The Honduran Congress today thumbed its nose at the rule of law, at the US State Department, and the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord.

Update: 8:48 PM Tegucigalpa time: 92 votes for the motion, 11 against so far.

Update 9:30 PM Tegucigalpa time: 110 votes for the motion, 14 against.

Final vote: 111 votes for the motion, 14 against, with 3 Congressmen absent.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

As Edmundo Orellana said, one cannot vote on a Decree while it is in effect. The constitutional nonsense they're doing is illogical enough to cause brain damage.

--Charles

blood said...

I am sure you have the best intentions to help out in Honduras but I think that balancing your opinions may serve our cause better. No election is perfect and we have witness this right here in our country. I do not want to bring on more pain but we probably suffered one of the greatest fraud on earth when Bush Jr won. Yes at the expense of discriminating against minorities and blessing of the supreme court.
After being exposed to this huge fraud in our soil, I am not too upset about Honduras because if it were true, more people voted this time than ever before. Nor I can ignore the faulty political skills of president Zelaya to maintain support of his own political party, congressmen he postulated and other branches of government. I just learned that Zelaya has been denied reinstatement and lost by a wide margin 111-14 the vote in congress (where he proposed to be reinstated).

Given this facts, I am forced to balance my evaluation of the situation in Honduras and review again the arguments promoted by the coup regime:
...the constitution and all the legal bodies in Honduras (attorney general, the different courts, Ombudsman, national election tribunal, and legislative branch had determined Zelaya was illegally trying to remain in power by conducting an election poll (ran by himself) with the intention of installing a national assembly, dissolving congress and supreme court and re-writing the constitution to his convenience. If Bush or other president had try to do this before leaving office, what do you think would be our reaction?
Yours, Harry

chela said...

The US thinks it's kosher. I don't know how mass insanity happens, but I think we're witnessing it.
http://www.state.gov/p/wha/rls/rm/2009/133101.htm

RAJ said...

@harry:

tonight I have less patience than usual.

So I will simply say: read the permanently reposted blog item at upper right. It refutes everything you think you know about the coup d'etat of June 28.

And no, it is not true that "more people voted this time than ever before". That is what is called the "big lie" technique. The real exit polling on Sunday showed less than 50% participation compared to the official voting registers. This is not a level that reflects a large boycott, and would be completely normal compared to the trend in recent elections.

But the Supreme Electoral Tribunal discounted 1 million of the registered voters, something they have not done previously, which allowed them to claim a much higher percentage of participation. And the English language media ate it up despite on the ground reports of modest (read: normal or less) turnout.