Micheletti adviser says Zelaya's not coming back

Yesterday, I expressed skepticism that the so-called breakthrough agreement to end coup-induced constitutional crisis in Honduras would actually bring deposed President Mel Zelaya back to power. 

An adviser to the leader of the coup regime basically admitted to Bloomberg that the prospect of a power-sharing government is just a public relations ploy.

Oct. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya won’t be restored to office under an accord that leaves the decision on his return to lawmakers, a vice-president of the Congress said.

“Zelaya won’t be restored,” Marcia Facusse de Villeda, an adviser to acting President Roberto Micheletti, said in a phone interview today, “But just by signing this agreement we already have the recognition of the international community for the elections.” [Bloomberg]

Via Greg Grandin in the Nation.

Comments

[El Cid]

I think it's very possible that Zelaya will be returned to office; however, in any real sense I doubt he will be returned to power.

The good news is that the Honduran military will likely suffer long in the future for this formal reversal of yet another coup against a civilian government; but for the moment, they will retain an effective veto on the exercise of the Executive. FWIW, the timetable of the new agreement posits the unity government as being formed this week, Thursday the 5th, should the Congress approve rescinding its illegal 28 June decree, as the accord guides (which it may not, but if it does not, no international recognition for the upcoming elections are likely, and the Honduran elites appear to want that badly).

I don't think this accord would have been reached had Zelaya not defied conventional opinion and international advice and re-entered the nation and received the appropriate protection from the Brazilian embassy.

PS: Thank God (the metaphorical sense) for the internet again. Reading and listening to the Honduran press has been a godsend in following this issue.