Forbidden Donut

i think they can handle themselves just fine

From what I've read, this isn't (really) a coup. The president was trying to edit their laws (illegally) in order to get another term. The punishment for such is immediate suspension of the current term and can not have a public position for ten years.

It kinda went:
1. President makes moves to remove term limits.
2. Supreme Court says no.
3. Army agrees with Supreme Court.

Technically a coup, simply because a lawfully elected president was taken out of power by force before the official end of his term.

I used the "really" to suggest that it could be defined as a coup (there has been some argument on which definition is right). It isn't a cut and dry situation. Regardless, it seems that the other government branches are backing the decision to get rid of him.

Edit: (removed quoted text)
The Coup d'État page at Wikipedia has been locked due to constant editing.

Wow, that wiki article has some seriously schizoid issues...

I'm not sure what about this doesn't scream coup to you. What did you read?

<=== is curious.

i see what jedd is saying. if the president is doing something illegal or unethical and as a result is removed, i really wouldn't consider that a coup in my mind, even if it still fits the definition.

This.

If someone is being removed from power legally, is it a coup? Granted, they did it in a very ... aggressive ... manner. I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out that everything I've read turns out to be bullshit, and there really was a classic coup. From what I've got to go on, it seems that they followed their constitution (which doesn't seem to mention how the President or Vice President is to be removed).

I'm not exactly sure why we're arguing about the philosophical nature of coups, but whatever.

From the article I started this off with:
"Mr Zelaya was elected in 2006 for a non-renewable four-year term but planned a vote asking Hondurans to sanction a future referendum to allow him to run for re-election.

He was opposed by the country's Supreme Court, the military, Congress and members of his own party, the Liberal Party of Honduras.

Last week he sacked the country's top military chief, General Romeo Vasquez, and also accepted the resignation of Defense Minister Edmundo Orellana after military commanders refused to distribute ballot boxes for Sunday's vote.

But in defiance of the president the Honduran Supreme Court unanimously voted to reinstate General Vasquez."

I know that I'm not familiar enough with the Honduran Constitution to say whether or not the Presidents call for a vote for the possibility of running for re-election is an illegal act, or whether the president has the authority to fire said General, though I suspect he does. I'm also not familiar enough with it to say what the legal avenues for impeachment in Honduras are, and I haven't read enough about the details of this story to comment on whether those avenues were explored.

Does somebody know more about these aspects of the story?