Lugo says Paraguay's democracy is 'broken'

Lugo told The Associated Press in an interview that there should be some form of punishment against the new government, but said he didn't want to see economic sanctions that would hurt ordinary Paraguayans.

"The democratic process in this country is broken," said the 61-year-old former Catholic clergyman once dubbed "the bishop of the poor." He added that he hoped "international organizations will have the maturity and the courage to say that there has been a break in the democratic process and that it merits a sanction."

Lugo's comment came ahead of a summit of the regional trade bloc Mercosur this Thursday and Friday in Argentina, and the expected arrival of an Organization of American States' fact-finding missing this weekend to study his fast-track impeachment by lawmakers last week.

In Wednesday's interview, Lugo said he believed that even if the Washington-based OAS takes strong action against the new government of former Vice President Federico Franco, who replaced him as president, it would not prove enough to land him back in office as it didn't in the case of Honduras.

The OAS suspended Honduras as a member after a 2009 coup that saw President Manuel Zelaya spirited out of the country by the military after he defied a Supreme Court order to cancel a referendum asking voters if Honduras should change its constitution. Opponents charged that Zelaya was trying to get around a constitutional provision limiting presidents to a single term. He denied that was he aim.

International sanctions and months of negotiations led by the OAS and the U.S. failed to persuade the interim government to restore Zelaya to power.

Honduras went ahead with November 2009 elections that had been scheduled before the coup and Porfirio Lobo was voted into office. The U.S. and other countries restored diplomatic relations shortly after Lobo took office in January 2010.

Zelaya was finally allowed to return to Honduras from exile in 2011 following an OAS-brokered deal — but not as president.

"I think that the Honduran itinerary will be repeated in Paraguay," Lugo predicted on Wednesday.

The OAS delegation to Paraguay will look into the circumstances of Lugo's destitution, which came after a five-hour-long trial that critics say allowed Lugo no opportunity to defend himself. The Senate found him guilty of "poor performance of his duties" over a deadly clash between police and landless peasants.