Political Problems in Honduras

Honduras holds some amazing memories for me as this was the country where I “cut my missions teeth”. For several years, I took regular trips to Tegucigalpa and the outlining areas on behalf of my King.

I remember one time crossing the courtyard in front of the capital building as the military drove up in a huge water cannon. We had innocently walked into a protest between some farmers and the government… needless to say, we got out of Dodge pretty quickly!

Needless to say, I have been watching the events in Honduras closely. And in a nut shell, I think the former president should stay out of Honduras and let the new government rule.

Why?

The former president was trying to remove a rule in the Honduran constitution that forbids him from seeking another term as president. At first he tried to change the constitution legally, which is good. However the Supreme Court of Honduras ruled that he could not run for office again. [@more@]

Yet, instead of obeying the law of the land, he tried to get the head of the military to help him change the constitution. The military leader rightfully declined to help him as it would have been very illegal. The president responded by firing the leader and continued to try re-write the constitution.

It was at that point that the new government folks stepped in and said enough was enough. They kicked the president out and sworn in the head of the Congress as the new president.

Of course, a lot of folks did not like this… It is interesting that most of the supporters for the former president tend to be blue collar folks while the new president supporters are white collar. I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that the former president gave away lots of money to the poorer working class folks – which was and is a good thing.

To me, the main reason I don’t like the former president is because of his disregard to the law and constitution of Honduras. If he truly wanted to help the people of Honduras he would of finished his term, left office and then continued to help the people in some kind of consultant or political advisor role.

The sad part is that a lot of the regional government – including the USA – are backing the former president. I know they are doing this because they don’t like it whenever the people rise up and kick anyone out of office…yet, I think they would do better if they would stand behind the constitution of Honduras and condemn the actions of the former president in trying to stay in office.