ホンジュラス関係 THE DAILY YOMIURIの記事です。
Honduras’Micheletti may step aside temporarily
TEGUCIGALPA(Reuters) - Honduras’de facto leader said he may give up his presidential duties for
a week so voters can focus on an election that Washington hopes will help end a five-month-old
political crisis.
Voters in the impoverished central American country are due to elect a new president on Nov.29,
but campaigning has been overshadowed by fallout from a military coup that toppled President
Manuel Zelaya in June.
“I plan to be absent from my public duties for a period that could begin on Nov.25 and end on
Dec.2,”Roberto Micheletti, the de factor leader, said in a televised address Thursday.
“The goal of this measure is for all Hondurans to concentrate on the electoral process and not
on the political crisis.”
But Micheletti said he had not yet made a final decision on whether he would step aside for a week.
Zelaya, who has been holed up at the Brazilian Embassy since sneaking back into the country in
September, dismissed Micheletti’s comments as “a whitewash.”
“His maneuver to pretend he’ll step down for a week is a false maneuver,”he told local radio.
“We ask him to go forever.”
Washington brokered a pact to end the crisis in late October but the accord crumbled within days
as the rival sides failed to form a unity government.
Zelaya initially welcomed the pact, which he said was meant to reinstate him to finish his term
as president of the coffee- and textile-producing country, one of Latin America’s poorest.
However, he has since vowed to refuse to return to the presidency as part of any negotiated deal,
saying to do so would legitimize the coup and the presidential election, which he is urging his
supporters to boycott.
A logging magnate who irked the nation’s elite by forming close ties with Venezuelan President
Hugo Chavez, Zelaya also said the ballot should be postponed, saying the crisis over the presidency
needed to be resolved first.
Latin American leaders have called for Zelaya’s immediate reinstatement. But the United States
appeared to weaken his position recently by saying recognition of the presidential election was not
contingent on Zelaya’s return.
