This is a Cato special podcast. I'm Caleb Brown. When the court orders the

military to remove a president after he flagrantly, repeatedly violates

the nation's Constitution, is coup really the right word

for it.

Juan Carlos Idalgo, Project Coordinator for Latin America at the Cato Institute, comments on the

unfolding situation in Honduras.

In the last couple of weeks, President Manuel Selagia in Honduras has been trying to put for a poll, what he called a

poll, a popular vote, in order to ask Hondurants whether they want a new

constitution, whether they want to call for a new constitution.

He wanted to have this vote on a new constitution in November when the country is going

to hold general elections to pick a new president and new Congress

and so on.

The problem here is that President Selaya is overly trying to change the constitution to seek re-election.

He's a close ally of Ugo Chavez in Venezuela, Daniel Ortega Nicaragua,

a memorial is in Bolivia and Raphael Korea in Ecuador.

So he's following the trend that has been said by Hugo Chavez,

so changing the Constitution and abolishing tournaments in order to perpetrate himself in power.

However, the Honduran constitution is quite adamant in its desire not to have that scenario happening.

Several articles in the constitution mentioned that it's even treason

to promote a change of the Constitution looking for a re-election. So the Supreme Court and Congress and the independent electoral tribunal in Honduras and the Attorney General's Office declared this poll that the President was trying to hold illegal and ask him to stop any efforts

to hold the vote last Sunday. However, he went ahead with his plans, he called these institutions,

democratic institutions, reactionaries, right wing.

...