Open Letter from the Liberal Party

When we last heard from the Liberal party on July 15, the Central Executive Council had formed a subcommittee to write a letter to Jose Manuel Zelaya Rosales asking him to put aside their differences and to come, rejoin, and help unify the Liberal party. The Executive Council president is Elvin Santos Lozano, the father of the party's presidential candidate in the last election. He said,

we are going to invite ex President Zelaya to participate in the unity program; if he doesn't want to, we aren't going to beg anyone.

Eduardo Maldonado, secretary of Central American Integration of the Executive Council also hoped to bring into the fold the "Liberals in Resistance". Maldonado said,

Liberals in Resistance is liberal, it will continue to be liberal, and we will look to incorporate this important director Manuel Zelaya Rosales because he represents a part of the membership of the Liberal Party of Honduras.

They did this out of political expediency. Without some kind of reunification, the Liberal party will remain a minor political party. Honduras will essentially become a one party system because none of the parties, outside of National Party, will have sufficient support to win national elections.

Over a week later they were reported to still be struggling with a draft letter to Zelaya, even after his lightning response, sent to Radio Globo announcer David Romero, which we blogged about here, that he would talk to them when they expel the dictator and pronounce against the coup

Late today El Heraldo published the text of an open letter from the Central Executive Council to the membership of the Liberal party, rejecting Zelaya's conditions for talking with them and calling for unity and reconciliation of the membership.

The original text of the letter, which is translated below, can be found here.

Honduran Liberals,

The Liberal Party, through its central authorities, has demonstrated its political maturity over time to bring itself to one and all of its members, militants, men and women, to declare about the events of June 28, 2009.

We understand that our party for more than a decade has been showing a slow deterioration produced by the incorrect application of its laws, improvisation, personal ambition, abandonment by the directorate, which has provoked a profound crisis taken advantage of by some irresponsible persons, because they want to change the direction of Liberalism, whose actions were done under their name; we, all the members of the party, are not guilty.

As a result of this outbreak of actions, the full Central Executive Council agreed at a news conference, to arouse Citizen Manuel Zelaya Rosales so that, by profound reflection, he would rejoin the party, prioritizing those high ideals of the liberal flag, its doctrine, its statutes, leaving to one side personal or group ambitions to convert Liberalism into the reunifying and transforming force capable of implementing changes and profound transformations for the Honduran people.

Unfortunately, we have as a public reply from Citizen José Manuel Zelaya Rosales, a series of conditions for which this political institution is not authorized; in consequence, we are freed of our historical responsibility and this leaves the political road open for him; our party is a political institution that has free membership and voluntary withdrawal.

Throughout history, the party has always needed the granitic unity of its members, it's not important which ideological group or thought which they belong to, and only accepts as a legitimate source of public power and exercise of sovereignty the will of the people expressed at ballot boxes, freely, justly, and equally; the Party ideologically nourishes itself on social liberalism and the fundamental popular sovereignty.

With the unity of the Liberal Party, the Honduran democratic system is strengthened. The actual crisis is a breeding ground to promote anarchy, the party condemns caudillismo, colonialism and dictators; it opposes regimes that go against the will of the people and defends the rule of law.

The Central Executive Council of the Liberal party of Honduras, as the highest representative of the party, makes a fervent call to Liberals so that together we raise the flag, red, white, red in favor of party DIALOGUE. We strip any petty ambition, recognizing our errors and by honest and sincere consensus, we will encounter the UNITY AND LIBERAL RECONCILIATION as the only way to reach power.

Liberals "ALWAYS FORWARD, NOT ONE STEP BACK"

Tegucigalpa, M.D.C. 02 August, 2010

Central Executive Council of the Liberal Party of Honduras

Refounding the Liberal Party

On July 14, Vos el Soberano published a brief note under the headline "When they expel the dictator then we can talk".

It reported the content of a message sent by ex-president José Manuel Zelaya Rosales to the Consejo Central Ejecutivo (Central Executive Committee) of the Liberal Party.

In it, Zelaya reportedly said he would talk with that group when it fulfills three requirements:

• when “the Central Committee announces against the Coup”

• when "They expel the dictator [Roberto Micheletti]”

• when “They demand justice for the intellectual and material authors of the 166 assassinations [by repressive organs of State on account of the Coup]. ”

Zelaya's communique was one response to a proposal by Elvin Santos Lozano, president of the Central Executive Committee (and father of the failed 2009 presidential candidate of the party), that Zelaya return to Honduras and rejoin the Liberal Party in order to unify it (and thus save it). Seems like a rough judgment on his own kid.

As an editorial by Radio Progreso, also available on Vos el Soberano, notes, Hondurans find themselves

with a situation unequalled in the political history of Honduras: a president who was overthrown by a coup d'Etat and sent into exile, and, after one year, is reclaimed by two antagonistic projects and political forces. The president that was proscribed, sent into exile and considered as the cause of the major division and polarization in the life of the country, now his return appears to be fundamental to the exit from the institutional stagnation in which we find ourselves and to make possible national reconciliation.

We have previously explained the outcome of the Tocoa Assembly of the Frente, in which Liberals in resistance were unable to seat additional delegates and withdrew from the provisional governance, explicitly without withdrawing from the Frente itself. This led to a curious sequence of actions by the Liberal Party itself.

Leadership of the Liberal Party came out shortly after the end of the Tocoa assembly of the Frente with an open invitation to the Liberals in resistance to reintegrate in the party. This explicitly included an invitation to Zelaya to return and organize a political "movement" within the party.

First, Marlon Lara, ex-campaign director for the party, currently second vice president of Congress, said the Tocoa meeting showed that the Liberals in Resistance should return to the party and contribute to its unification. Lara

exhorted them to collaborate with the initiative of the Consejo Central Ejecutivo to procure granitic unity of the party for which a commission will travel to the Dominican Republic to negotiate with the overthrown president Manuel Zelaya.

At about the same time, members of the Liberal Party held what was reported variously as a unity forum or a gathering of Zelaya supporters, the latter the way El Heraldo headlined their article. It was said to bring together "a part of the directorship of the Liberal resistance, ex-officials of the deposed president Zelaya, and presidential aspirants", implying that these are all categories of Liberal Party members with reasons to oppose the current governance of the party.

At this forum, Eduardo Maldonado, ex presidential contender, said that "the unity of his party passes by the return without conditions of ex president Manuel Zelaya." Esteban Handal Pérez, another "pre-candidate" for president, called for a special party convention to vote in new leadership.

Edmundo Orellana, who reportedly also participated,

insisted on the need for the authorities of his party to convene, as quickly as possible, internal elections (not primaries) to change all the authorities: central, departmental, and municipal.

As the article notes, the majority of those who would be removed from office belong to one of three major movements within the Liberal Party: those headed by Elvin Santos, Roberto Micheletti and Eduardo Maldonado. Maldonado volunteered to have the occupants of the two seats his movement controls on the Central Executive resign. No one from the Santos or Micheletti camp attended.

Also present and speaking at the forum: Jaime Rosenthal, perennial presidential aspirant and owner of El Tiempo.

According to La Tribuna, all the speakers called for the immediate and unconditional return of Zelaya, hoping he will take a place as a "standard-bearer" in the party, and most of the speakers at the forum endorsed a national constitutional assembly as a the only way to institute social and economic changes. The exceptions to the latter call: Jaime Rosenthal and Esteban Handal

As we write, the Central Executive Committee is reportedly writing a letter to ask whether Zelaya would receive a delegation to talk things over in the Dominican Republic. As reported by El Heraldo, "some political sectors" speculate that Zelaya will receive a delegation if the Central Executive Committee calls the "events of June 28" a coup:

The Central Executive [Committee] has not said if what occurred the 28th of June was or was not a coup d'Etat nor has it condemned nor applauded the situation of which Zelaya, member of the Liberal Party, was victim.

Elvin Santos Lozano ducked the question, saying that the Truth Commission will decide what happened. Not too promising in terms of meeting Zelaya's stated condition. And of course, no reference to the requirement that Roberto Micheletti, honored senior Liberal Party member, be expelled.

Tiempo, in its reporting on the forum by dissident Liberal Party members, underlined that members of the present Central Executive Committee "do not enjoy the sympathy and backing of the majority of the Liberals".

That was inadvertently underlined when presidential hopeful Handal helpfully predicted that the proposed commission to Zelaya would be a fiasco.

Victor Sierra, a director of the Liberal Party movement M-Lider (Movimiento Liberal Democrático Revolucionario), probably had the single most evocative comment.

As reported in Tiempo, he proposed to "refundar el Partido Liberal": refound the Liberal Party.

Now, where have we heard something like that before?