Honduran congress approves Zelaya’s free exit

The Honduran congress has voted to allow ousted president Manuel Zelaya to freely leave the country, as the Central American nation is preparing for its new president to take office.

The congressmen late on Tuesday voted to give the deposed leader political amnesty and pave the way for him to leave Honduras.

Zelaya, who has already accepted the Dominican Republic’s offer to stay in that country, is going to leave Honduras on Wednesday on the same day the opposition leader Porfirio Lobo will assume the office of presidency to end several months of political crisis in the country.

“I have an invitation … to go to the Dominican Republic and I will accept the invitation, obviously with the approval of the new government,” Zelaya told local radio on Tuesday, Reuters reported.

The President-elect Lobo said he would accompany Zelaya to the airport to see him off.

“President Fernandez (Dominican President Leonel Fernandez), President Colom (Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom) and myself too, will go to the Brazilian Embassy, if access is open, to take out — no, to accompany President Zelaya to the international airport so that he can make his departure,” he said.

Zelaya, who was removed from power by his own army in June last year, has promised to return one day but his political future remains uncertain.