Cb says "As a side note, there is nothing dictatorial about Presidents having more than one term, especially when a vote of the People changes the Constitution to allow it."
There is a very good reason why, under the current state of exception. Which means that much of the governing takes effect through Presidential decrees, especially in Latin America, that any President should be allowed more than two terms. The fact is that populism is the quick-sand upon which some constitutions have and are being changed so that the term limitations are extinguished. If at the same time the constitutions were changed to ensure that governance would not be through Presidential Decree then this would change the political effects of these long terms in office. But this has not been done. Therefore the system of checks and balances through these constitutional changes, even though supported through the principle of popular sovereignty, is severely diminished. The onus is on Presidents to ensure this balance and Presidents are to be held to a higher level of accountability, especially if the constitutional changes translate in to the prolongation of their powers. This is not to say that a constitutional consultations are undesirable, they should take place, throughout long periods in popular assemblies. In terms of Honduras, President Zelaya was in his right, as a citizen, which the Honduran constitutional provides for, curiously however, it precisely interdicts this action to be initiated by the President, i.e. to open the necessary legal steps for such a consultation, and there lays the crux of his problem. I have no idea whether he intended to protect the system of checks and balances, but at the same time it appears he was about to make drastic changes to systematic political exclusion of underprivileged citizens inherent in the current constitution. nchamah On 11/08/09 4:08 PM, "c b" <[email protected]> wrote: > On the writer's notion of dictator-to-be, the Honduran events are > causing rightwingers in Honduras and the US to expose their complete > ignorance and disdain for the fundamentals of democracy. The first > principle of democracy is popular sovereignty, as in the _theory_ of > the US Constitution by which all power derives from "We, the People" > as a whole. For Honduran President Zelaya to propose a Constitutional > Convention and vote of the whole Honduran People on their Constitution > is the most democratic , anti-dictatorial proposal he could make.. > There can be nothing more democratic than a vote of the whole People > on the fundamental law of the land. > > As a side note, there is nothing dictatorial about Presidents having > more than one term, especially when a vote of the People changes the > Constitution to allow it. Does the writer think that the US Presidents > who have had second terms are dictators ? The rightwing objections to > the wave of Constitutional changes made by the Peoples of several > nations in South and Central America expose these rightwingers to the > world as anti-democrats and the true would be dictators > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
