Gwynne Dyer: Former president Manuel Zelaya plays politics in Honduras
Let us suppose that Manuel Zelaya, the ousted former president of Honduras, is an intelligent man with a good understanding of how politics works. Then the question is: what is his game? Because he started all this.
Zelaya was removed from office three months ago in circumstances of doubtful legality. Both the Supreme Court and the Congress demanded his removal for "repeated violations of the constitution and the law," but the way it was done– Zelaya was woken up by soldiers and hustled out of the country by plane–smelled more like an old-fashioned military coup.
A member of Zelaya’s own Liberal Party, Roberto Micheletti, the speaker of Congress, was sworn in as interim president, and everybody promised that normal democratic service would be fully restored after the elections scheduled for 29 November. But every non-Honduran with access to a microphone took up Zelaya’s cause, from the Organisation of American States to the U.S. State Department, and he emerged as a fully-fledged democratic martyr.
The left-wing leaders who have proliferated across Latin America in recent years were particularly supportive of Zelaya. Despite Brazilian president Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva’s firm denials, the suspicion lingers that Zelaya’s sudden re-appearance inside the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa on Monday did not come as a complete surprise to the Brazilians.
Zelaya says he hiked in from the border, dodging guards and military checkpoints. And that is probably true. But he must have had a plan for what he would do when he reached the Honduran capital to avoid arrest (his opponents have brought corruption charges against him), and those plans probably involved the Brazilian embassy from the start.
Now, he is holed up there, surrounded by the Honduran army. It’s the perfect scene for a media watch that puts enormous pressure on Zelaya’s opponents to make concessions–or alternatively, the ideal location for a massacre of his supporters by trigger-happy soldiers, in which case popular opinion shifts to Zelaya’s side and he returns triumphantly to power.
Or at least, that is probably his plan. Am I being too cynical? Okay, let’s consider the evidence.
Zelaya was in the closet before he became president. He secured the nomination of the Liberal Party, a slightly left-of-centre party which has traditionally alternated in power with the right-wing National Party, and he narrowly won the presidency in the 2006 election. But it was only after he was safely in the presidential mansion that Zelaya dropped the mask and started moving Honduras sharply left.
He restored diplomatic relations with Cuba for the first time since 1962 and signed up for Petrocaribe, the agreement by which oil-rich Venezuela sells oil to poorer countries in the region at a reduced price. He promised to join Alba, the Venezuelan-backed alternative to the free trade agreements backed by the United States. He even refused to accept an American ambassador for a time.
But in practice, he did not achieve much for the Honduran poor and he failed to build mass support for his policies. Opinion polls this year put Zelaya’s popular approval at only 25 percent.
Moreover, he was running out of time, since the Honduran constitution only allows presidents one term in office and his term ended this year. So Zelaya did something peculiar: He announced that there would be a non-binding referendum on creating a constituent assembly to change the constitution and allow presidents a second term.
It was peculiar because he had no legal right to hold such a referendum, nor does the Honduran constitution allow a constituent assembly to be elected for such a purpose. Even if the illegality of the process was ignored, there was no chance that it could all happen in time to let him run for a second term in the November election. In any case, Zelaya’s own party would refuse to re-nominate him. So what was his game?
Zelaya’s only chance of holding on to power was to create a crisis that would sweep all of those considerations aside. He pressed ahead with his plans for a referendum last June, even after the Supreme Court declared it illegal. When the army refused to assist in the referendum, Zelaya fired the commander-in-chief. So the congressional and judicial authorities moved against him, although they would have been wiser just to wait him out.
Zelaya may not have foreseen the precise manner of his removal from office, but he was clearly seeking a confrontation that would destabilise the existing constitutional order. It was his only chance of staying in power.
He’s halfway there. Zelaya’s dramatic return to the country has created semi-siege conditions in the capital, and it’s unlikely that the November elections can go ahead in the current circumstances. That already improves his prospects, because it drives the country beyond the usual constitutional procedures.
Zelaya has already painted himself as the democratically-elected victim of a military coup, and as such he enjoys unprecedented foreign support. If his domestic opponents are stupid enough to use force, he could actually win. Judging by their past performance, they may be that stupid.
Comments
5 Comments
Hector Mena
Sep 23, 2009 at 4:22pm
Why stupid ?, stupid is Mel Zelaya, to come back to a country nobody wants him just a bunch of looters and money backed defenders,.
Don ´t you think if really people wanted that crook back he already will be in goverment again, I ´m without work right now cause the slowing of bussines in the country, but I prefer that, to be carried to a Cuba o Venezuela authoritarism style goverment.
Greetings from Tegucigalpa, Honduras
asp
Sep 23, 2009 at 5:12pm
"He announced that there would be a non-binding referendum on creating a constituent assembly to change the constitution and allow presidents a second term."
The proposed referendum question makes no mention of allowing presidents a second term.
Sevente
Sep 24, 2009 at 12:27am
”˜Because he started all this’.
Well written Mr Dyer, as usual. Many thanks.
I’ve been following this from way before Zelaya was removed and it is my humble opinion that he didn’t start all this at all. All this was started by Fidel Castro in collaboration with Hugo Chavez. Both are military men, military dictators one might say, and both are cunning and ruthless in pursuit of their fantasies. This, to them, is a serious war game about power and control.
Zelaya is a fool, that’s all. It will be interesting to see how this plays out but the ”˜twenty-first century Bolivarian' turn to radical socialism (neo-communism) is idiotic, to say the least. It will surely fail.
jjc
Sep 24, 2009 at 6:12pm
Gwynne's usually solid with his facts, but in this case he doesn't seem to know that Zelaya has never been quoted as having aspirations for another term in office and the proposed mechanics of constitutional change in Honduras would have taken many months if not years. Whatever his motives, there is no evidence that personal power or aggrandizement is at play here.
Helmut Enns
Oct 31, 2009 at 5:40am
" Supreme Court and the Congress demanded his removal"
That's right. The Supreme Court, which is appointed each term by the Congress, and the Congress, controlled by the elite in the country demanded his removal. He did not stick to the party line so they wanted to get rid of him. He opened jobs to tender which had always been given to one party member, and did many other things that annoyed the wealthy.
" normal democratic service restored after 29 November."
Then why are there selective killings of prominent union and civil rights leaders by the military? Why beatings, rape, and random imprisonment?
I believe Zelaya returned to Honduras to put pressure on the international community to resolve the situation. The USA has imposed some sanctions, and so have many Central American Countries, and European countries, but Canada stands out as doing nothing, in fact Canada is seen as supporting the coup, and quoted by the coup as being supportive of them.
If Zelaya dropped the mask and started moving Honduras sharply left, that's wonderful.
"He signed up for Petrocaribe,- Venezuela sells oil to poorer countries in the region at a reduced price."
If this is a problem, why does the coup regime continue to buy cheap oil from Petrocaribe?
"But in practice, he did not achieve much for the Honduran poor"
He may not have achieved "much" in one sense, but in another he achieved a lot, being the first President to initiate changes which improved the lot of the poor. He raised the minimum wage by 60%, bringing it from the lowest in Central America to the average. He instituted school food programs, started pensions for the elderly, financial assistance for students hoping to attend university, and the list goes on.
He announces a non-binding referendum. Those in opposition to him created this fear that he wanted to change the constitution so a president could run for more than one term. That was a smoke screen created by those who orchestrated the coup.
"Zelaya’s only chance of holding on to power was to create a crisis"
These last two paragraphs only hold water if in fact Zelaya did this to stay in power. Gwynne Dyer has created this argument, which I have never read before. The coup regime has hired the consultant firm Hilary Clinton used in her election campaign. I expect they are working hard to come up with a range of arguments to justify the coup, which will appeal to a wide of people.
I may be as naive as Gwynne Dyer is cynical, but from what I learned n Honduras when i was there in August, I tend to side with the FRENTE an amalgamation of human rights organizations and unions who supported the call for a referendum long before the coup, and who support the return of Zelaya, the democratically elected President, so that normal elections can take place this month, elections in which Zelaya will NOT be a candidate. The FRENTE is much more concerned about a returned to conditions they way they were, which was not very good, than to seeing Zelaya back in power. Their hope is that the momentum to a more just, representative government will continue, and that in time Honduras will truly be a democracy, which represents all people. Their fear is that the repression that has occurred for the last four months will continue. Any prominent voices opposing the coup will continue to be silenced with killings, torture, rape, disappearances. Any small improvements made during Zelaya's term will be wiped out. Multi-national, like Canada's t-shirt giant, Gildan, and mining companies, including Goldcorp will have free rein to do whatever they want, at immeasurable costs to the Honduran people and environment. And, should this coup be successful in Honduras, which Central American country will be next? That is why there was a strong presence in the protests from other CA countries.