Comment: 宏都拉斯作錯了什麼？

What did Honduras do wrong when they kicked off an obviously lousy President?

In an age of economic crisisies and political unrest, people in Latin America may expect there will be some one to stand up and guide them. However, an over-mighty president, on the other hand, may remind them of the political nightmare before they started to practice democracy decades ago.

In the small, mainly poor and unstable countries of central America, Honduras is considered relatively stable. In other words, you can imagine when president Mr Manuel Zelaya was kicked out of his country on June 28th, how surprised the world was.

The political crisis of Honduras occurred mainly because the incumbent president Manuel Zelaya want to emulate Mr Chavez by organizing a referendum to call for a constitution assembly which may allow him to remain in power regardless the opposition in Congress and the courts. That is why the military arrested him for defying the Supreme Court and bundled him off to a neighbouring country. The legislature then voted unanimously to install Mr Micheletti as his successor.

The only people who do not think the action was not a coup are Hondurans themselves,while their neighbors and rest of the world think otherwise. Though Mr Zelaya made a the first mistake, the Honduras Congress soon followed. The Honduras constitution contains no provision for impeachment. Instead of brining him before the judges, they drove the President away under military force. Therefore, no countries in Americas has recognized Mr Micheletti’s regime but asked for the restoration of Mr Zelaya. In short, Hondurans attempted to correct the initial mistake, but chose the wrong method.

Under the pressure from international society, the dispute might be solved in a predictable way.

From this crisis we have learned that the democratization is a long process. It takes time to move from one phase to another. First, we become aware that something is wrong. Then we should know how to correct it in a legitimate way. In the end, we may grasp the essence of democracy which is that no one can prevent a legitimate exchange of power in a democratic society.