José Manuel Zelaya Rosales is a Honduran politician who was President of Honduras from 27 January 2006 until 28 June 2009. He is the eldest son of a wealthy businessman, and inherited his father's nickname "Mel". Before entering politics he was involved in his family's logging and timber businesses.
Elected as a liberal, Zelaya shifted to the political left during his presidency, forging an alliance with the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas known as ALBA. On 28 June 2009, during the 2009 Honduran constitutional crisis, he was seized by the military and sent to Costa Rica in a coup d'état. On 21 September 2009 he returned to Honduras clandestinely and resurfaced in the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa. In 2010 he left Honduras for the Dominican Republic, an exile that lasted more than a year.He now represents Honduras as a deputy of the Central American Parliament. Since January 1976 Zelaya has been married to Xiomara Castro de Zelaya, who was a presidential candidate in the 2013 general election but lost to Juan Orlando Hernández.
Wikipedia
“I prefer to march on my feet than to live on my knees before a military dictatorship.”
Quoted in Miami Herald, September 24, 2009. http://www.miamiherald.com/honduras/v-fullstory/story/1248828.html
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