Zelaya’s party in Honduras has lost a lot of support since the summer

Zelaya’s antics haven't endeared his party to the Honduran people.

Elvin Santos of the Liberal Party (PL) is second with 21 per cent—down 16 points since July—followed by César Ham of the Democratic Unification Party (PUD) with three per cent, Bernard Martínez of the Party for Innovation and Unity - Social-Democracy (PINU) with two per cent, and Felicito Ávila of the Christian Democratic Party (PDCH) also with two per cent. More than a third of respondents remain undecided.

In November 2005, PL candidate Manuel Zelaya won the presidential election with 49.9 per cent of all cast ballots, defeating Lobo Sosa of the PN. Less than 69,000 votes separated the two contenders. Zelaya took office in January 2006.

On Jun. 28, a group of military officers stormed into Zelaya’s residence and took him to the airport, where he was flown to Costa Rica.

On that same day, Hondurans were supposed to vote in a non-binding referendum proposed by the president. Voters were to decide whether they should be consulted in an election scheduled for November on the potential creation of a Constituent Assembly to re-write the Constitution.

The Honduran Supreme Court had deemed the plebiscite illegal, but the president had decided to go ahead with the vote. Opponents claimed that Zelaya planned to ultimately alter the Constitution in order to scrap presidential term limits and instate a "socialist" model. . . .

UPDATE: The sanctions imposed on Honduras seem pretty significant:

Latin American countries including Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela have said they won’t recognize the results because the former leader hasn’t been restored to power. The International Monetary Fund froze Honduras’s access to $163 million in special drawing rights after Zelaya’s ouster. . . .