José Manuel Zelaya Rosales (born 20 September 1952)Encyclopædia Britannica, Manuel Zelaya is a Honduran politician who served as the 35th president of Honduras from 2006 until his forcible removal in the 2009 coup d'état; and as the inaugural first gentleman of Honduras from 2022 until 2026. He is the eldest son of a wealthy businessman, and inherited his father's nickname "Mel". Before entering politics he was involved in his family's logging and timber businesses.
Elected as a liberal, Zelaya shifted to the political left during his presidency, forging an alliance with the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas known as ALBA. On 28 June 2009, during the 2009 Honduran constitutional crisis, he was seized by the military and sent to Costa Rica in a coup d'état.
On 21 September 2009, he returned to Honduras clandestinely and resurfaced in the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa. In 2010, he left Honduras for the Dominican Republic, an exile that lasted more than a year.
He now represents Honduras as a deputy of the Central American Parliament. Since January 1976 Zelaya has been married to Xiomara Castro, the former President of Honduras, elected in the 2021 general election. Upon his wife's inauguration, Zelaya became the first "First Gentleman" in Honduran history.
Background Zelaya was born the eldest of four children in Juticalpa, Olancho. Two of his brothers remain alive. Zelaya's mother, Ortensia Rosales de Zelaya, has been described as his best campaigner. His family first lived in Copán, then they moved east to Catacamas, Olancho.
He attended Niño Jesús de Praga y Luis Landa elementary school and the Instituto Salesiano San Miguel. He began his university studies in civil engineering, but left in 1976 with 11 courses completed, for agriculture and the forestry sector. He was forced to take over the family business by the arrest of his father José Manuel Zelaya Ordoñez, implicated in the murders known as "Slaughter of the Horcones."Rigoberto Padilla Rush. Memorias de un comunista. Página 406Cuando las Segovias lloraron sangre: La odisea de la familia Moncada. Juan Moncada. These murders also involved Mayor José Enrique Chinchilla, Sub-Lieutenant Benjamín Plata, José Manuel Zelaya Ordoñez (property owner) and Carlos Bhar. They were charged and taken to the Central Prison; after four years in prison, they were favored with a pardon from the head of state, General Policarpo Paz García, in 1979.Para la casa más que para el mundo: sufragismo y feminismo en la historia de... Rina Villars (página 473) He has engaged in business activities, including timber and cattle, handed down to him by his late father. He is now a landowner in Olancho. In 1987, Zelaya became manager of the Honduran Council of Private Enterprise (COHEP), as well as of the National Association of Wood Processing Enterprises. The COHEP occupies a particularly important role in Honduran politics, as the Constitution delineates that the organization elects one of the seven members of the Nominating Board that proposes nominees to the Supreme Court of Honduras.Constitution of Honduras, Article 301.
Zelaya's father received a 20-year prison sentence for his role in the 1975 Los Horcones massacre, which took place on the Zelaya family ranch, Los Horcones. As a result of an amnesty, he served less than two.
Political career Zelaya joined the Liberal Party of Honduras, Partido Liberal de Honduras, (PLH) in 1970 and became active a decade later. He was a deputy in the National Congress for three consecutive times between 1985 and 1998. He held a number of positions within the PLH and was Minister for Investment in charge of the Honduran Social Investment Fund (HSIF) in a previous PLH government. In the 2005 presidential primaries, his faction was called Movimiento Esperanza Liberal (MEL). He received 52% of the 289,300 Liberal votes, vs. 17% for Jaime Rosenthal Oliva and 12% for Gabriela Núñez, the candidate of the Nueva Mayoría faction. Zelaya won the general election of 27 November with 918,669 votes, which accounted for 49.9% of voters, defeating the National party candidate Porfirio Lobo Sosa, who received 46.22% of the votes.
Presidency (2006–2009)
During Zelaya's time in office, Honduras became a member of ALBA, an international cooperation organization based on the idea of social, political, and economic integration between the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. It marked his turning to left-of-center politics, the first such case of right to left policy switch as he had been elected in on a conservative platform. Political opponents, particularly business elites, opposed his foreign policy, including his alliance with Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, and friendship with Cuba's Raúl Castro.
In spite of a number of economic problems, there were a number of significant achievements under Zelaya's presidency. Under his government, free education for all children was introduced, subsidies to small farmers were provided, bank interest rates were reduced, the minimum wage was increased by 80%, school meals were guaranteed for more than 1.6 million children from poor families, domestic employees were integrated into the social security system, poverty was reduced by almost 10% during two years of government, and direct state help was provided for 200,000 families in extreme poverty, with free electricity supplied to those Hondurans most in need.Xiomara Zelaya, New Statesman, 17 September 2009, My father has been punished for helping Honduras
Alliance with ALBA
On 22 July 2008, Zelaya sought to incorporate Honduras into ALBA, an international cooperation organization based on the idea of social, political, and economic integration in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Conflict with media Zelaya said that the main media outlets in Honduras, owned by wealthy conservatives, were biased against him and did not cover what his government was doing: "No one publishes anything about me. . . . what prevails here is censorship of my government by the mass media." Inter Press Service says that the vast majority of radio and TV stations and print publications are owned by just six families.IPS, October 2008, op cit., about 2/3 of the way down. Retrieved July 2009."Honduras: Government advertising allocation as 'subtle censorship'", IPS via Soros Foundation and Open Society Justice Initiative, October 2008. Retrieved July 2009."In Honduras, One-sided News of Crisis" , The Washington Post, 9 July 2009. Retrieved July 2009.
According to a paper written by Manuel Orozco and Rebecca Rouse for the Inter-American Dialogue think tank in the United States, the Honduran media operate as arms of political parties."Honduras new government is censoring journalists", The Miami Herald, 1 July 2009. Retrieved July 2009
On 24 May 2007, Zelaya ordered ten two-hour cadenas (mandatory government broadcasts) on all television and radio stations, "to counteract the misinformation of the news media". The move, while legal, was fiercely criticized by the country's main journalists' union, and Zelaya was dubbed "authoritarian" by his opposition. Ultimately, the broadcasts were scaled back to a one-hour program on the government's plans to expand telephone service, a half-hour on new electrical power plants and a half-hour about government revenues.
An unknown gunman in 2007 murdered a journalist who often criticized Zelaya. The Inter-American Press Association (IAPA) and the United Nations criticized threats against journalists in Honduras. Other critical journalists, such as Dagoberto Rodriguez and Hector Geovanny Garcia, fled into exile because of constant murder threats.
The Associated Press, citing Manuel Orozco of the Inter American Dialogue, said that "His [Zelaya's] campaign for changing the constitution has energized his support base of labour groups, farmers and civil organisations who have long felt marginalized in a country where a wealthy elite controls the media and much of politics.""Honduras heads toward crisis over referendum"
Corruption investigations of Hondutel
Manuel Zelaya appointed his nephew Marcelo Chimirri as General Manager of the state-owned telecom Hondutel.
According to the Mexican newspaper El Universal, relying on information supplied by the Arcadia Foundation, Hondutel's revenue decreased 47% between 2005 and 2006, the first year of President Manuel Zelaya's administration, despite Hondutel's monopoly on international calls In April 2009, Latin Node Inc., an American company, pleaded guilty to making improper payments to Hondutel, "knowing that some, or all of those funds, would be passed on as bribes to officials of Hondutel". Chimirri resigned in 2007, and was arrested following the coup. He remains in prison on charges of abuse of authority and embezzlement, charges he denies. Apart from Chimirri, Oscar Danilo Santos (the former manager of Hondutel), Jorge Rosa, and James Lagos are all charged in connection with allegedly committing crimes of abuse of authority, fraud and bribery having received bribes of $1.09 million U.S. from an international carrier in exchange for Hondutel providing that carrier lower rates than other firms. Auditor Julio Daniel Flores was charged for the lesser crime of violation of duties of officers.
Attempts to modify the constitution
Zelaya came to international attention in June 2009 when he was overthrown in a military coup and forced into exile. The crisis that led to his removal from office centered around the question of whether changes would be made to the 1982 Honduran Constitution. Zelaya proposed a national poll to gauge interest in constitutional change, which provoked a fierce reaction from opposition parties. Those responsible for the coup justified their actions on the grounds that Zelaya's interest in potentially convening a constituent assembly to draft a new constitution was illegal, and alleged that his real motive was to increase his time in office. Zelaya denied that his motive was to stay in office, stating that he intended to step down in January 2010 as scheduled, noting that his successor would be elected at the same time the vote on whether to convene a constituent assembly would occur.
Under constitutional law, the President of Honduras can amend the constitution without a referendum if a congressional majority exists. However, eight articles cannot be amended, including those related to term limits, the permitted system of government, and the process of presidential succession.
Because the president can amend 368 of the 375 articles in the Honduran constitution without calling a constituent assembly, some suspected that Zelaya's true intention was to extend his rule. One-time Christian Democrat presidential candidate Juan Ramón Martínez argued that Zelaya was attempting to discredit parliamentary democracy, saying, "There appears to be a set of tactics aimed at discrediting institutions... he has repeated on several occasions that democratic institutions are worthless and that democracy has not helped at all".21st Century Socialism Comes to the Honduran Banana Republic . Council on Hemispheric Affairs
Referendum
On 11 November 2008, following requests from multiple Honduran groups for the convening of a constituent assembly,
Zelaya issued a decree organizing a poll to decide whether the electorate wanted a fourth ballot box installed at polling places for the upcoming 29 November 2009 general election – an addition to the usual three for presidential, congressional, and municipal candidates. The fourth ballot would ask voters whether to convene a National Constituent Assembly for the purpose of writing a new constitution. In March 2009, Zelaya announced that he first wanted to have a preliminary poll – he suggested 28 June 2009 as a date – to ask voters whether they wanted the fourth ballot to be included in the November 2009 election.