Honduras Supreme Electoral Tribunal Comes Out Against Coup Decree

By Al Giordano

D.R. 2009 Latuff, Special to The Narco News Bulletin

The layers keep peeling away from "president" Roberto Micheletti's coup d'etat, which began with a consensus of most of upper class Honduras and its political institutions but in recent days has seen Congressional and business leaders begin looking for the EXIT sign.

It was Micheletti's authoritarian decree, announced on Sunday, that blasted away the glue that had previously held them all together, with its prohibitions on Constitutional rights of speech, press, assembly, transit and due process.

Today, the country's Supreme Electoral Tribunal joined the growing mob of former unconditional backers of the coup for whom Micheletti's decree went a step too far:

The Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE, in its Spanish initials) of Honduras today asked president Roberto Micheletti to cancel the decree that suspended constitutional rights because it harms the electoral process scheduled for November... and thus joined in similar demands made by Congress, presidential candidates and other sectors...

Micheletti said... that he would agree to analyze the request and insisted that the decree will be "cancelled in the opportune moment."

However, he said that he would continue to consult on the matter with the Supreme Court and other State organisms with the goal of making a "consensus" decision.

Those few paragraphs speak volumes about what is happening behind the curtain. Let me translate them.

On Sunday, Micheletti announced the authoritarian decree without having the aforementioned "consensus" of key coup players. Some seemed as surprised as the general public to find out about it. The decree already does not have any "consensus" even among the limited power players between whom the coup was negotiated and implemented. Now he is saying he needs "consensus" to remove it.

What does this tell us? It reveals that Micheletti himself isn't calling the shots here. He specifically mentions the Supreme Court, and his reference to "State organisms" most likely means the Armed Forces: the two real kingpins of the coup, for whom Micheletti is a mere marionette.

In typical style, he fools gullible reporters to repeat claims that he has already backed off the decree, while this morning military and police troops continued attacks on peaceful demonstrators that have maintained government agricultural offices occupied for three months now. Clearly, the real powers behind the decree - the Supreme Court and the military - want to make sure it meets its main goals before having to call it off.

What the electoral commissioners can clearly see that the inner trinity of coup power - the Army, the Court and Micheletti - don't seem to "get" is how the decree has destroyed any hope of convincing Hondurans or the world that the November 29 elections can be made free or fair. It's already too late. Smarter minds are seeing it, while the the Army, the Court and Micheletti push on out of an apparent belief that if they don't keep brutally repressing and silencing speech, the nonviolent civil resistance is going to roll right over the coup.

It's possible that both sectors are right about their analysis in this way: The coup "moderates" understand that their electoral "solution" is now screwed, thanks to the decree. While the "hard liners" understand that if they allow basic constitutional rights, they won't be able to hold back the tide of public opinion much longer. Meanwhile, by stalling on the requests by his former coup allies to cancel the decree, Micheletti is further isolating the Army, the Court and he from the support they previously enjoyed. And this is the part of the movie when the once invincible coup regime begins to divide and fall.

Fuente: narcosphere.narconews.com

.