TEGUCIGALPA -- Honduras' de facto president Roberto Micheletti believes he is on a calling from God, a divine mission to fix roads, address a tanking economy and boost municipal budgets.

Micheletti said he will tackle swine flu and a teachers' strike, but is adamant: It's not his job or within his power to resolve the thorny issue of the former president hunkered down in the Brazilian Embassy for the past week, he said in an interview with the Miami Herald on Friday.

On Sunday, he issued a 10-day deadline for Brazil to decide how it plans to deal with Manuel ``Mel'' Zelaya, the former head of state who sought refuge at their embassy, which Brazil said it would ignore.

An opposition TV station reported Sunday that Micheletti published an official decree allowing him to suspend freedom of speech because some news stations allegedly were inciting violence.

Micheletti also refused entry to four Organization of American States reps -- including an American -- who tried coming to Honduras to help sort out the political crisis.

``I feel that we are here because of an obligation,'' Micheletti said in the interview. ``Suddenly, many people don't like me to say that this is a matter of God bringing us here, that He gives us this tough obligation. But we'll come out of it.''

To his critics here and abroad, Micheletti is living in a parallel universe, isolated at the presidential palace getting bad advice. His stubborn determination to push forward with an upcoming discredited presidential election and refusal to allow the former president's return has stymied negotiations and led to a political crisis that has polarized this nation of 7.8 million people, opponents say.

But to supporters, the 66-year-old former transportation tycoon and head of Congress is the steady hand who will lead Honduras through the much-anticipated November elections.

Determined to project the image of a leader in charge, Micheletti is the antithesis of deposed president Zelaya, who three months after losing power at gunpoint, appears to be growing increasingly emotionally agitated.

THE OUSTER

Micheletti became president on the afternoon of June 28, a few hours after the military stormed Zelaya's house and booted him out of the country in his pajamas.

Zelaya is widely viewed as a loose cannon who could have faced impeachment for defying a court order that prohibited him from holding a voter referendum on rewriting the constitution. Zelaya's enemies -- the other powers of state plus the business community -- grew convinced that Zelaya planned to rewrite the constitution so he could stay in power.

There is no process for presidential impeachment under Honduran law, so in an act even Micheletti and the military's own lawyer acknowledge was illegal, the military flew Zelaya out of the country.

Zelaya never got a chance to defend himself in court against treason charges.

Zelaya sneaked back to Honduras on Sept. 21 and refuses to leave the Brazilian embassy until he is restored to power.

A proposal crafted by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias called for Zelaya's return and amnesty for everyone involved. But Micheletti has refused the deal. Arias will discuss his role in the conflict Tuesday when he addresses the Americas Conference at the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables.

``I am not responsible for these things,'' Micheletti told The Herald. ``What can I offer? I cannot talk about proposals, when the courts of justice are dealing with the problems he has. It's up to the public ministry, to the congress for issues of amnesty. How can I issue orders? I respect the powers of the state, which is something he didn't do when he was president.''

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