President Zelaya tried for an illegal power grab, and failed. Why is his removal being slammed as a coup, instead of praised as a victory against a would-be dictator?

If the Canadian and other world governments had been as thoughtful in approaching the situation in Honduras as they have been hasty in casting judgment upon it, we wouldn’t be in the midst of a terrible foreign-policy blunder. But here we are. How did we get here?

The events leading up to the present crisis are largely undisputed. Manuel Zelaya became president in 2006, elected to a single four-year term ending in January 2010. The Honduran Constitution barred Zelaya from running for re-election, and as his term neared an end he sought to overcome the constitutional bar by amending the Constitution. But the Constitution prohibits amendment of the presidential term limit; so Zelaya sought to organize a constitutional convention that would re-write the rules. But the Constitution also prevented the president from calling such a convention, giving that power to the Congress. And the Congress said no.

Undeterred, Zelaya announced that he would go ahead with a referendum on the question of the term limit, and ordered ballots from Venezuela. The matter proceeded to the Supreme Court, which declared the referendum illegal. Zelaya demanded that the army assist him in administering the referendum (as they would, apparently, in the normal course of things); the army’s commanding officer refused, citing the Supreme Court’s decision; Zelaya promptly fired him. When the Supreme Court ordered his reinstatement, Zelaya either refused or immediately fired him again.

The army, having refused to administer the referendum, seized the ballots that had been delivered from Venezuela. Zelaya then organized a mob and broke into the military installation where the ballots were held, seized them, and began to distribute them.

This is where things get a bit hazy. The army arrested Zelaya at his home. It is unclear whether they acted at the express order of Congress or the Supreme Court; what is clear, however, is that they acted with the approval of both. It is also unclear whether Zelaya, now in exile, chose to leave the country rather than face justice in Honduras. In any case, as soon as he was deposed, Congress initiated proceedings, under the Constitution, to ensure the succession of power. An interim president was chosen to preside until the regularly scheduled elections choose a new leader this fall. Zelaya’s ouster has popular support, including the support of Zelaya’s own party in Congress. And at no time has the Honduran military attempted to seize any political power.

Yet almost immediately upon Zelaya’s removal, world governments – including the Canadian and American governments – leapt to his defence, condemning his removal as a “coup” and warning against the intervention of the Honduran military in domestic political affairs.

This is a mistake. The confrontation between the three branches of the Honduran Republic is a Honduran constitutional crisis, and it is up to Honduras to settle the matter. And that is what they have done. There is no question, and it cannot reasonably be doubted, that Zelaya broke the law – not only in pursuing his referendum in the face of the Supreme Court’s decision, but in refusing to reinstall the army commander and in seizing the referendum ballots from the military. The other branches were entirely within their rights – their rights under the Honduran constitution, and their inalienable rights as adjudged by a candid world – to order Zelaya’s arrest.

Now it may be, as some have suggested, that the precise mechanism by which Zelaya was arrested and removed from office was extra-constitutional. I’d have thought that the Supreme Court of Honduras would be the arbiter of that, or that, at least, the people of Honduras, not the presidents of Venezuela, Cuba, and the United States, should be the ones to decide. But if the removal was extra-constitutional, Zelaya’s restoration is not the remedy. Indeed, having so clearly broken the law, Zelaya – if he is dissatisfied with exile – should face prosecution in Honduras.

Instead, world governments have refused to recognize the duly constituted government of Honduras and have demanded Zelaya’s restoration. Why?

I’ve heard various explanations, none of them compelling. It has been suggested – and I’m given to understand that this is the prevailing attitude at PMO and DFAIT – that Zelaya is the democratically elected president, and that he should remain in that position until a new president is elected in the fall. And it has been suggested that approval of the ouster would encourage a return to the military coups that were common in Central and South America in the 20th century.

These explanations are based on superficial assumptions about the state of democracy in Honduras, and in Latin America more generally. The explanations are related: we ought to support the democratically elected president against the military, the thinking goes, because the president is a tribune of the people, while the army is a reactionary force that would subvert democracy.

But, in fact, the exact opposite is true: there is absolutely no sign, hint, or indication that the Honduran military seeks political power, while Zelaya has openly sought to expand his political power beyond the bounds of the constitution in defiance of the laws of the land and the dictates of the political and judicial branches. Nor does the point hold more broadly: while military coups posed a great threat to Latin American democracy in the middle years of the 20th century, the greater threat in the past two decades has come from elected presidents – elected presidents who use quasi-constitutional mechanisms like “non-binding plebiscites” to accrete power from the other branches, gradually eroding constitutional checks and balances to the point that once-functioning democracies like Venezuela have become the fiefdoms of megalomaniac despots like the “democratically elected” Hugo Chavez. The knee-jerk preference for a democratically elected president over the military may be laudable in the abstract, but it is faulty in practice.

And that’s the great risk of our meddling – for meddling is what it is, and make no mistake. The risk – aside from our betrayal of the Honduran people in the moment of their triumph – is that Zelaya, once returned, will succeed in subverting the constitution and installing himself as president for another term. Backed by the threat of a Venezuelan invasion, and with the tacit approval of the United States and the United Nations, he certainly would be a fool not to try. And then what?

Zelaya says he has no intention of serving another term as president. The proof will be in the pudding. By rights he should be in prison. Thanks to the hasty and ill-advised meddling of the Canadian, American, and other world governments, he may return to office until year’s end. In January, he will either stay or go. If he goes, then his temporary ouster will at least have put a stop to his illegal schemes.

If he stays, then we will have been complicit in the installation of a despot.