...More information on the situation I blogged about earlier involving Manuel Zelaya, former President of Honduras.
Zelaya was replaced thanks to the order of the Honduran Supreme Court with a gentleman named Roberto Micheletti, who was from Zelaya's own political party and was previously Speaker of the House (the Honduran equivalent, anyway.) That appointment was affirmed by the Honduran Congress, which voted overwhelmingly to confirm Mr. Micheletti as the interim president, serving only until the scheduled end of Zelaya's term, in January. The Presidential elections which will replace Mr. Micheletti will happen in November.
Now, since our Sock Puppet In Chief seems determined to refer to this as a right-wing military coup, let me cite Constitutional authority here.
...The Honduran Constitution, that is.
For those of you who read Spanish, here's the original.
For the rest of you, Article 237 directs that the President serve a single 4-year term. Article 239 says that any attempt by the President to change this, like, say, using a referendum to try to amend the Constitution, shall immediately vacate him from office and render him ineligible to hold public office for a period of ten years.
But wait, there's more!™
See, Article 42 says that Zelaya not only lost his office, but lost his CITIZENSHIP, because citizenship is lost,
4. Por coartar la libertad de sufragio, adulterar documentos electorales o emplear medios fraudulentos para burlar la voluntad popular;
5. Por incitar, promover o apoyar el continuismo o la reelección del Presidente de la República;
Which translates to, "4. For limiting the freedom of the vote, falsifying electoral documents, or employing fraudulent methods to circumvent the will of the people; 5. For inciting, promoting, or supporting the continuation or re-election of the President of the Republic." (Here's the Google translation; I leave it to you to decide if I speak Spanish better than Google does.)
Whoa, Nellie.
That's right. Zelaya is guilty of BOTH of those - and right there in the Constitution of Honduras, it not only says he can't do it, it says he lost his citizenship in Honduras by doing so, and since he must be a citizen to hold office, he's gone.
So the military quite properly acted under the orders of the Supreme Court and the duly elected Congress to remove an illegal alien from Honduran territory.
Good luck trying to convince the world it was a right-wing coup against a legal authority.
Hey, President Obama, a question?
Why WOULD you be supporting the return to power of an illegal alien ineligible to hold public office, hmmmm?
I'm just curious.
