• Roberto Micheletti sworn in as new president
• Zelaya meets leftist allies in Nicaragua
• Obama administration condemns Zelaya’s overthrow
Honduras was increasingly isolated tonight as the international community lined up to denounce a coup which ousted President Manuel Zelaya.
Latin America, the United States, the United Nations and the European Union piled diplomatic pressure on the new government to quit just a day after the Honduran army seized the president in his pyjamas and bustled him into exile.
The capital, Tegucigalpa, remained tense with soldiers and armoured vehicles ringing the presidential palace but making no effort to clear nearby barricades manned by about 200 pro-Zelaya protestors.
The leftwing leader was ousted early on Sunday in a joint move by the army, judiciary, congress and disaffected members of his own party.
The architects of central America’s first military overthrow in 16 years said it was a necessary and legitimate action to remove a power-hungry president who had broken the constitution.
Congress swore in its speaker, Roberto Micheletti, as the new interim president. He urged the international community to respect Honduran sovereignty and said he would step down after presidential elections in November: “We respect everybody and we only ask that they respect us and leave us in peace because the country is headed toward free and transparent general elections. I’m sure that 80% to 90% of the Honduran population is happy with what happened today.” He said outsiders had no right to interfere. “Nobody scares us.”
Zelaya met leftist allies at an emergency summit in neighbouring Nicaragua. The summit depicted his downfall as a plot by rightwing elites to row back socialism in the region.
“If the oligarchies break the rules of the game as they have done, the people have the right to resistance and combat, and we are with them,” said Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s president.
The presidents of Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua were expected to join Venezuela’s leader in the Nicaraguan capital Managua.
The Obama administration, conscious of the US’s long history of supporting coups against Latin American leftists, condemned the overthrow. The secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, said Washington’s top priority was to restore full democratic and constitutional order in Honduras. Zelaya’s removal had “evolved into a coup”, she said.
The United Nations invited Zelaya to New York to report directly to members of the General Assembly. The head of the 35-member Organisation of American States said it would accept no Honduran president other than Zelaya. The European Union offered to mediate.
Zelaya, 56, a rich and flamboyant landowner, was elected in 2006 as a conservative but then embraced Chávez’s form of “21st century socialism”. He was popular among many of Honduras’s poor but his overall approval ratings hovered at 30%.
He angered the country’s institutions by trying to hold a non-binding referendum about changing the constitution to allow presidential terms beyond a single, four-year term. Opponents accused the president, who was due to leave office in January 2010, of plotting to perpetuate his power.
Just before the coup Zelaya fired the armed forces chief, who refused to cooperate in the referendum, and defied a supreme court ruling to abandon the vote.