TEGUCIGALPA, (Reuters) – Leftist Honduran President  Manuel Zelaya yesterday pressed ahead with his effort to extend  presidential terms as opposition lawmakers, saying he had  overstepped his authority, moved to oust him from office.

Zelaya issued a decree to hold a national referendum on the  issue tomorrow and supporters began distributing some 15,000  ballot boxes for the vote. A court has ruled the referendum has no  legal basis.

Zelaya, backed by Venezuela’s socialist President Hugo Chavez  and former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, is on a quest to change his  country’s constitution to allow presidents to run for a second  four-year term.

But opposition parties and the courts are fighting the  referendum, and the army is refusing to help organize it.

Zelaya said in a television interview on Friday he would  order the army to remain in barracks during the voting period.

Yesterday, legislators for the center-right National Party  told Reuters a congressional committee set up to investigate  Zelaya found he had violated the Central American nation’s laws  and would ask Congress to declare him unfit to rule.

“What we agree on is declaring him incompetent to continue  governing the country,” said deputy Wilfredo Bustillo, whose  party is a close second to Zelaya’s Liberal Party in Congress.

“This is what is going to be asked of Congress,” he said,  adding that the move would come after tomorrow.

Zelaya risks losing a vote in Congress over removing him,  given that the Nationals have 55 deputies to his party’s 62 in the  128-seat assembly and a number of ruling party lawmakers also  oppose the referendum plan.