03:38 pm
Honduras, Iran, and Definitions of Democracy
Daniel Larison compares and contrasts events in Honduras and Iran:
[L]et’s try a thought experiment about this question anyway. We are appropriately wary of people who invoke a political crisis to justify extraordinary and extra-legal measures. This sort of rhetoric can be so easily abused for the sake of augmenting and consolidating the power of those in government that we should normally be skeptical of such claims. That said, isn’t it the case that the response of Honduran political and military institutions to presidential illegalities is exactly the one that most of the Western world has been openly desiring in Iran?
Isn’t one of the main problems in Iran that the military and interior ministry colluded with Ahmadinejad in his crime? Suppose they had grabbed him on June 12, the day of the election, and thus prevented him from carrying out his fraudulent power-grab. Would we take seriously for a moment anyone gravely intoning about the need for proper procedure and rejecting the result as an illegal action against the democratically-elected president? (Obviously not, because very few, even the most ardent Mousavi cheerleaders, genuinely think of Iran as having anything like a real democratic process.) One way to look at the Honduran situation is that the political and military institutions removed Zelaya early on rather than permitting him to continue to abuse his office. They did what their counterparts in Iran could not or would not do. Indeed, one might go so far as to say that they were able to take such action because Honduras is a constitutional democracy in many important respects that Iran simply isn’t. . . .
Despite the serious inconsistency on one level, there is a common thread connecting the overzealous pro-Mousavi Westerners to the overreacting international condemnation of the Micheletti government in Honduras. What really irks Westerners who have invested so much energy into Mousavi’s cause is not that Iranian laws were broken or its constitution violated, but that the will of the majority was presumably thwarted and in any case the people were denied their voice. Mousavi believes he is fighting for the integrity of the Islamic republican system and its rules; his Western admirers embrace him (however absurdly) as a symbol of majoritarian democracy. Even though the whole of Honduras’ political class was in agreement that Zelaya had to go because they believe he threatened the Honduran constitution, this does not matter to the rest of the world. Zelaya is a populist demagogue who apparently still has considerable mass support, and it is his democratic support that counts for far more in the view of the rest of the world than his lack of respect for constitutional limits.
I find this to be a fairly disingenous argument. Zelaya was democratically elected in what absolutely everyone (even his opponents) agrees was a free and fair election. Zelaya’s undemocratic moves took place after he assumed office. The case in Iran is vastly different — the ruling elite (including Ahmadinejad) apparently* stole an election, claiming that they had a popular mandate.
The key is not whether Zelaya and Ahmadinejad had a popular mandate, but rather whether they acted in the best interests of sustaining a healthy democratic system. The answer in both cases is no. But it’s equally accurate to say that the opposition in Honduras also failed to meet this standard.
It’s been decades since advocates of democratic governance (even in the Bush Administration) have thought that elections are the be-all and end-all of democracy. The reality is that “democracy” means much more than elections, and that both Zelaya’s attempts to hold on to power and the parliamentary-military coup against him were undemocratic. To suggest that this is about populist majoritarianism fails to recognize the reality that neither side in Honduras has acted in the long-term interests of a stable democracy.
The problem, of course, is that the international community (or, for that matter, individual states) cannot merely say “a pox on both your houses.” Someone has to be in charge. The question is not who is right and who is wrong but rather who will do more damage to the prospect for continued democratic governance in Honduras (and beyond).
The real solution is some sort of compromise.
Adopt new constitutional measures that a) explicitly outlaws the use of a majority vote in a referendum to amend the constitution and b) provides for some sort of process to remove a President acting extra-constitutionally in a manner that does not require the military to grab him/her while still in his/her pajamas.
Then turn the government over to a caretaker, preferably someone not embroiled in the current dispute.
Allow Zelaya to return. Hold a new election, preferably within the next few months, in which Zelaya is allowed to stand as a candidate. Invite international observers and the UN. And then accept the results as the mandate of the Honduran people.
Is it a perfect solution? Absolutely not. But somebody has to come up with something that addresses the reality that neither side is acting in the best interests of the country.
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*I say apparently because we never really will know. The reality is that Ahmadinejad may have won a majority of votes, but not 65 percent as claimed. Then again, he may not have.