Honduran president Manuel Zelaya is ousted by a local military coup following a failed request to hold a referendum to rewrite the Honduran Constitution. This was the start of the 2009 Honduran constitutional crisis.

Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Ocean at the Gulf of Fonseca, and to the north by the Gulf of Honduras, a large inlet of the Caribbean Sea. Its capital and largest city is Tegucigalpa.

José Manuel Zelaya Rosales is a Honduran politician who served as the 35th president of Honduras from 2006 until his forcible removal in the 2009 coup d'état; since January 2022, he has served as the inaugural first gentleman of Honduras. 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.

The 2009 Honduran coup d'état, which took place during the 2009 Honduran constitutional crisis, occurred after President Manuel Zelaya failed to follow a Honduran Supreme Court ruling. On 28 June 2009, the Honduran Army ousted him and sent him into exile. Zelaya had attempted to schedule a non-binding poll to hold a referendum on convening a constituent assembly for writing a new constitution. Despite court orders to cease, Zelaya refused to comply, and the Honduran Supreme Court issued a secret arrest warrant dated 26 June. Two days later, Honduran soldiers stormed the president's house in the middle of the night, detained him, and thwarted the poll. Instead of putting him on trial, the army put him on a military plane and flew him to Costa Rica. Later that day, after reading a resignation letter of disputed authenticity, the Honduran Congress voted to remove Zelaya from office and appointed Head of Congress Roberto Micheletti, his constitutional successor, to complete his term. This was the first coup to occur in the country since 1978.