Ousted Honduran leader ends struggle to return to power as new president takes office

New Honduran leader to take office, ending turmoil

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — A conservative rancher is being sworn in as Honduras’ new president Wednesday, ending months of turmoil and the quest by ousted leader Manuel Zelaya to be restored to power after a coup that drew international condemnation.

President-elect Porfirio Lobo said the first thing he would do after taking office was escort Zelaya from his refuge at the Brazilian Embassy to the airport, where the deposed leader planned to board a flight to the Dominican Republic and start a new life in exile.

Zelaya, who was ousted in a dispute over changing the Honduran constitution, said he would leave the Central American country as a private citizen under a deal signed by Lobo and Dominican President Leonel Fernandez.

The left-leaning Zelaya said he would accept that he was no longer president — but only the moment his four-year constitutional term officially ended Wednesday.

It marks a quiet end to his tumultuous struggle to return to power after soldiers stormed his residence June 28 and flew him out of the country in his pajamas.

“He’s done. I think at this point, if you are Zelaya, you slink away into the corner and you recoup for a little while,” said Heather Berkman, a Honduras expert with the New York-based Eurasia Group. “But I think in the near term, Zelaya is finished as a politician.”

The country’s institutions moved quickly this week to put the coup behind. On Tuesday, a Supreme Court judge found six generals innocent of abuse of power charges for ordering soldiers to escort Zelaya out of the country at gunpoint. Court President Jorge Rivera said in a statement that “prosecutors failed to prove the military chiefs acted with malice.”

Hours later, Congress voted to approve amnesty for both the military and Zelaya, who had been charged with abuse of power and treason over his defiance of a Supreme Court order to cancel a referendum on changing Honduras’ constitution.

Opponents said Zelaya wanted to hold onto power by lifting a ban on presidential re-election, as his ally Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez did. Zelaya denied that, saying he only wanted to give more voice to Honduras’ many poor and shake up a stagnant political system dominated by a few wealthy families.

Zelaya slipped back into Honduras in September, hiding in the trunk of a car and in tractors. He turned up at the Brazilian Embassy to the dismay of interim President Roberto Micheletti and the delight of hundreds of supporters who followed the ousted leader into the diplomatic mission and vowed not to leave until he was restored to power.

As U.S.-brokered talks dragged on and ultimately failed to reverse the coup, the supporters slowly went home. Zelaya urged his backers not to show up at the embassy or stage protests Wednesday, saying he wanted to leave quietly.

“It would interfere with the process of my exit and would complicate things for me,” he told Radio Globo from the embassy, where he and wife have slept on inflatable mattresses, while soldiers and police surrounded the building.

An aide has said Zelaya would likely take up residence in Mexico, but the ousted leader has given no details about his plans.

Lobo, a charismatic and savvy politician from the conservative National Party, made clear he looked forward to starting his presidency with Zelaya out of the picture.

“Can you imagine starting a government with a president imprisoned in an embassy?” Lobo said at a news conference. “It wouldn’t be fair.”

Wednesday’s inauguration also marks the end of Micheletti’s coup-installed government, which resisted months of international pressure to restore Zelaya to office, including the suspension of U.S. development aid and anti-narcotics cooperation.

Micheletti bet that international insistence on Zelaya’s return would fade after the Nov. 29 presidential election won by Lobo. It largely worked.

Some left-led Latin American countries, including Brazil and Venezuela, insisted that recognizing the election outcome would amount to condoning a coup in a region that has long struggled to install stable democracies.

But the United States, by far the largest source of direct foreign investment in Honduras, argued Hondurans had the right to choose their next leader in a regular election that had been scheduled long before Zelaya’s ouster. More and more Latin American countries have taken that stance.

On Tuesday, President Mauricio Funes of El Salvador, himself a leftist, said he would not attend Lobo’s inauguration because it was taking place under Micheletti’s government. But he said he would restore diplomatic ties with neighboring Honduras as soon as Lobo was in power.

“Once the inauguration takes place, and President Lobo becomes the legitimate president of Hondurans, we will start the process of normalizing relations as soon as possible,” said Funes, who is sending his deputy foreign minister to the swearing-in ceremony.

Lobo has promised to send an envoy on a diplomatic blitz to persuade other countries to restore ties and aid, badly needed to plug a fiscal deficit and lift Honduras out of an economic recession.

While the U.S. was sending top State Department officials to Lobo’s inauguration, it has not yet restored about $40 million in non-humanitarian assistance. Multilateral lending agencies have also blocked Honduras’ access to credit.

Lobo, however, said he had already received assurance from the U.S. government that the aid would soon be restored. He also said he had letters from the World Bank that were encouraging about the prospect of lifting the block on credit.

“With the United States, starting tomorrow, everything will be normal,” Lobo said. “They will officially tell me that once am I president.”

U.S. officials did not immediately return requests for comment.

Associated Press writer Juan Carlos LLorca reported in Tegucigalpa and Alexandra Olson in Mexico City.