Apologists for the coup in Honduras stress that the ousted president wanted to hold an illegal referendum. What they don't explain is that the referendum was legal when president Zelaya called it.
Only after the vote was already scheduled did the Honduran Congress pass a law banning referendums within so many days of an election:
The Honduran Congress passed a new law on Tuesday, after an unusual late-night legislative session. The measure, called the Ley Especial que Regula el Referéndum y el Plebiscito, establishes specific restrictions on the power of the executive to call for national referendums by prohibiting plebiscites and referendums 180 days before or after a national election.
Prior to Tuesday’s development, President Zelaya had scheduled a vote for June 28 on whether to convene a constituent assembly to re-write the Honduran Constitution. Plans for the referendum provoked widespread criticism throughout Honduras, and were declared illegal by the Supreme Court, the Attorney General and the Human Rights Ombudsman, but President Zelaya vowed to press forward with the vote. [Americas Quarterly]
As you might expect, this kind of post hoc meddling by Congress sparked legal controversy--but the Honduran supreme court upheld the law and Zelaya refused to call off the vote.
In so doing, he probably overstepped his authority--though that's impossible to say without reading the legal arguments of both sides. I've yet to hear the administration's justification. We shouldn't just assume that the separation of powers in the Honduran system is directly analogous to our own.
Besides which, it was a non-binding referendum. Even if the military had allowed the referendum to proceed, the vote would have had all the legal weight of a public opinion poll.
I find it amusing that wingnuts only recognize the perils of executive power when other world leaders try to fashion themselves as Unitary Executives.
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