Feint Left

Poor, hot, and fractious, Honduras—the original banana republic—rarely draws a second look from the global community. But on June 28, when President Manuel Zelaya was yanked out of bed by the military and bundled onto a plane for exile, the world took notice. International leaders were unanimous in decrying yet another Latin American assault on democracy. In a vote that united Barack Obama and Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez, the Organization of American States expelled Honduras, the only nation since Cuba to be so disgraced. Caracas even threatened to send in troops to reinstate Zelaya. Never again, cried the wallahs and pundits of international diplomacy, could Latin America be allowed to fall under the heel of men in epaulets.

Yet in the rush to judgment on Honduras, regional heads of state showed selective zeal for democracy, at best (Zelaya, a lame duck, had been plotting to rewrite the Constitution, presumably to allow him to run for a second term). Their elision could be felt around the world: Latin leaders from reliable democracies like Mexico, Chile, and Brazil have been strangely silent as a growing number of populists and autocrats in Latin America have, in recent years, leveraged their charisma to open the door to permanent reelection and quash the other impediments of democracy—legislatures, courts, and constitutions.

Chávez has been the most widely recognized abuser, and not just because his transgressions were the worst; his politics and rhetoric simply drew the most international attention. During his rise, he has become a master of using the ballot box to concentrate his power and cow his rivals. Since coming to power in 1999, he has wielded state media and largesse to stand in 10 elections and plebiscites, the last of which, in 2008, struck down presidential term limits, allowing him to stay in power indefinitely.

Chávez's example has spread across the region, where a potpourri of Bolivarian allies emulated the comandante's mix of muscle and populist hubris. Both Evo Morales, Bolivia's first indigenous president, and Rafael Correa, the U.S.- and Belgian-trained economist, parlayed their cachet among the poor and forgotten ethnic minorities into sweeping new charters. In Ecuador and Bolivia, the new constitutions will soak the rich and middle classes, radically redistribute property, and grant indigenous regions far more power over local and national affairs. Bolivia has even set up autonomous indigenous courts in which local groups trump national laws.

Inspired by his Andean compañeros, Daniel Ortega, the former Cold Warrior, has announced plans to do the same in Nicaragua. And the left doesn't hold a monopoly on tailoring constitutions to personal ambitions. Colombia's Alvaro Uribe, the poster boy for U.S.-Latin entente during the Bush administration, is gladly allowing his political allies to conjure a constitutional amendment allowing him a third term. Zelaya would have been next if he'd stayed in power.

Thankfully, the Hondurans were a step ahead of him. In 1988, lawmakers in Tegucigalpa had armor-plated their Constitution with a few "untouchable items"—clausulas petreas—such as Article 239, which sets the presidential mandate at a single four-year term (with no reelection) and declares that any leader who even proposes to amend the Constitution to end term limits will be automatically disqualified from the job and banned from politics for 10 years. Amazingly, Zelaya pressed ahead anyway, ignoring explicit orders by the Congress and the attorney general. When Gen. Romeo Vasquez, head of Honduran armed forces, refused to carry out the plebiscite, Zelaya fired him. And when the Supreme Court restored Vasquez to power, Zelaya ginned up a mob to seize the bundles of ballots (which had been sent to Tegucigalpa courtesy of Chávez) that voters were meant to fill out on voting day. All the while, the earnest, democracy-minded statesmen dripping with outrage over Zelaya's ouster said nothing.