Honduras could have early elections

Washington Post:

Honduran leaders who supported the coup against President Manuel Zelaya maintained a defiant stance Thursday in the face of international pressure, as diplomats conceded that a quick, painless resolution to the regional crisis might not be possible.

Officials in the new Honduran government led by interim President Roberto Micheletti said that they were prepared to hunker down for weeks or months and that they could survive economic sanctions, diplomatic isolation and even the condemnation of their closest ally, the United States, which has played an outsize role in the history of Honduras for a century.

Micheletti, however, said he was open to one compromise: moving presidential elections up from November to an earlier date in a bid to soften outside condemnation of the coup and keep Hondurans from turning toward violence.

"Since I have no desire to run for president myself, you can believe me when I say that what we want is a legal, orderly transfer of power," Micheletti told The Washington Post.

José Miguel Insulza, head of the Organization of American States, said he would fly to Honduras on Friday and insist on the return of Zelaya, who was seized by troops at dawn Sunday and flown to exile in Costa Rica.

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The insistence on reinstatement seems ridiculous. The guy was in violation of the country's constitution and putting him back in office would not be a triumph for the rule of law, but the opposite. I think Micheletti has offered a reasonable compromise if the outside parties are reasonable enough to pursue it. Zelaya is too divisive a figure to be reinstated and does not deserve it anyway.