So did Porfirio Lobo Sosa remove himself from office when he talked about reforming the constitutional article about presidential re-election this week? Lobo told HRN radio
"If the people want re-election, then lets have that, and if they don't want, we won't have it....In the end, the people decide....the worst thing we can do is deny the right of the people to decide."
All of this conversation about re-election and letting the people have a voice, currently absent, in how the country is run, centers around proposed reforms to Article 5 of the Honduran constitution. Article 5 governs plebiscites and referenda and sets the rules for holding them.
Under the current rules, it takes the action of 10 Congress people plus the President and a resolution from the Secretary of State's council, or 6% of the electorate to bring the question of holding a plebiscite or referendum to the attention of Congress, which must then get a 2/3 vote of support to hold it.
The Resistance passed this threshold in their call for a constitutional convention, obtaining the signatures and fingerprints of 1.3 million registered voters, or about 25% of the registered voters, but Congress ignored them.
But back to re-election. Remember the infamous Article 239 of the Honduran constitution? The one that the backers of the coup and the de facto regime claimed automagically removed Manuel Zelaya Rosales from office for talking about re-election? Miguel Estrada claimed it. Octavio Sanchez made the same claim. Micheltti repeated it incessantly.
The claim ignored the due process requirements of the Honduran Constitution and was nonsense.
Today no one is saying Lobo Sosa removed himself from office by talking about re-election.
Why not?
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2 comments:
Micheletti came out rather quickly in criticism of Lobo, compared his proposal to those of Zelaya and insinuated a threat against the stability of Lobo's government if he continues with it.
Yes he did, but Micheletti has never been the key player here-- the newspapers, the UCD, the Cardinal and the Supreme Court are.
Micheletti at least is being more consistent with his own personal past than he was during the term of the de facto regime, when he denounced the mere idea even after historical researchers-- who paid with their livelihood-- found and publicized the news reports from the 1980s when he was part of a move to remove term limits to allow the President to stay in office.
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