Posted on 07/01/2009 7:42:32 AM PDT by La Lydia
...events in Honduras also need to be understood in the context of Latin America's decade of chavismo. Venezuela's Hugo Chávez was democratically elected in 1998, but he has since used every lever of power, legal and extralegal, to subvert democracy. He first ordered a rewrite of the constitution that allowed his simple majority in the national assembly grant him the power to rule by decree for one year and to control the judiciary.
In 2004 he packed the Supreme Court...Any judge who rules against his interests can be fired. He made the electoral tribunal that oversees elections his own political tool, denying opposition requests to inspect voter rolls and oversee vote counts...
Mr. Chávez has also exported this brand of one-man-one-vote-once democracy throughout the region...
In Honduras Mr. Chávez funneled Veneuzelan oil money to help Mr. Zelaya win in 2005, and Mr. Zelaya has veered increasingly left in his four-year term. The Honduran constitution limits presidents to a single term, which is scheduled to end in January. Mr. Zelaya was using the extralegal referendum as an act of political intimidation...
Such populist intimidation has worked elsewhere in the region...It's no accident that Mr. Chávez is now leading the charge to have Mr. Zelaya reinstated..
As for the Obama Administration, it seems eager to "meddle" in Honduras in a way Mr. Obama claimed was counterproductive in Iran. Yet the stolen election in Iran was a far clearer subversion of democracy...As a candidate, Mr. Obama often scored George W. Bush's foreign policy by saying democracy requires more than an election -- a free press, for example, civil society and the rule of law rather than rule by the mob. It's a point worth recalling before Mr. Obama hands a political victory to the forces of chavismo in Latin America.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Good article.
THis is one of the most distressing things Obama has done to date. And it’s passing virtually unnoticed by most Americans.
Evidently Obama would prefer the Honduran military be personally loyal to their president rather than to their constitution. Makes one think....
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