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Message: <blockquote data-quote="monson" data-source="post: 28080233" data-attributes="member: 30005">TE: With SOE restructuring, in particular, the unions have been very hostile.RW: I don’t worry about unions, what matters is people. People are going to stand it if they think things can get better.TE: One of the things the previous government did was pretend things were not so bad. And of course, people are not idiots. They knew things were bad, and they came on to the street. Is it perhaps a hope that by being honest to people by saying, “Look, I’m going to level with you, this is what’s happening,” that will persuade them that there’s no point protesting, because that’s just what things are?RW: I hope so. And also we are looking at other political issues, at getting in the changes to the system that they want, to discuss those, to open up the political system.TE: You’ve started to develop quite warm relationships with the military. That’s not really something that people have been used to about you, can you talk us through that?RW: I don’t have warm relations with the military at all. As president and minister of defence I have certain functions. The only time that I did something out of the way was to give those certificates to the air mobile battalion that safeguarded parliament. Tomorrow I’m going to the handing over of the Dornier aircrafts by the Indians to us in the National Defence College, as the president. And the air mobile battalion is something I started in 1993. So I was quite happy to be amongst them. I go to the Security Council, which I have to do once a week. Other than that, some of the events I’m going to are just ones the president has to attend.TE: So you wouldn’t say there’s been any change in your relationship with the military?RW: No, just that one time I gave certificates to the people who protected parliament. If the parliament went, there would have been chaos in the country. And I wanted to give a message that the soldiers have done their duty. Now the MPs must do their duty too.TE: The Dornier thing tomorrow is really interesting because again, it’s Sri Lanka doing this balancing act. On the one hand there’s this ship in Colombo, there’s that ship in Hambantota and then the president is going and accepting surveillance aircraft from the Indians. Am I interpreting this correctly as balancing?RW: We have been involved with India in the Colombo dialogue on the maritime security of this area. And this is a part of extending the Sri Lankan reach by having maritime surveillance aircraft. The Dornier is being given by India to train our people but we’ve been working alongside them. The problem now is the shortage of fuel. Our navy has not been able to operate at full capacity. There’s a similar operation that we are carrying on with Australians on the boat people. We are intercepting a large number every week, I go to the defence ministry when people come in, it&#39;s 40, 50, 60 people every week who try to get from here to Australia. So, we are working with both India and Australia.TE: Why did you decide to keep the defence ministry as part of your portfolio?RW: The defence ministry is basically held by the president and I took it over so that we could stabilise and establish law and order. But I think we also have to make a lot of changes in the defence structure. And we are talking about defence [in] 2030, and have it embedded from then onwards. It’s a part of the restructuring and modernisation we have to do.TE: So what are the defence priorities for Sri Lanka?RW: Firstly, to help the police, civil power to maintain security here. Secondly, we are looking and then working with India, Australia on the maritime side. But we are also looking outward, we are in Mali now and expanding our role in the UN peacekeeping forces. In Mali we’re doing quite well. So we can expand that, see if we have a future there. But we also have to contain the defence budget.TE: On the defence budget, that’s one of the possible areas where you might need to make cuts. How are you going to do that?RW: I think that’s for the secretary of defence and the others to work out.TE: On the subject of terrorism, one of the things you said while you were prime minister is about asking British intelligence to do a full proper inquiry about the 2019 Easter bombings.RW: Yes, British intelligence is involved in these inquiries about the Easter bombings. There are so many issues that have been raised. And we are talking to the UK to get help to do a final review. We don’t have their theories of what’s happening.TE: So the idea is to do an authoritative final one and put that to rest?RW: Yes.TE: Just to go back to the adjustments in the negotiation process with the IMF. So you’re going to resume negotiations at the end of the month. And then hoping to get the staff level agreement some time in September? And how is that going? Are you already speaking to the various creditors, bilateral, private etc?RW: We’re talking to official creditors. I will be writing to the private creditors, maybe some time this week.TE: And what are you asking them to do?RW: We’re informing them on the situation.TE: Do you have a prediction to make: at what point does Sri Lanka return to, say, 2018 levels of prosperity? What can Sri Lankans look forward to?RW: Maybe about 2024, 2025? Initially we thought 2024 but it looks like 2023 is going to be a bad year globally, so it can be 2024, 2025.TE: And for Sri Lankans, will 2023 be a better or a worse year than 2022?RW: I would say the beginning will be tough. But the ending will be better, we’re trying to reduce the period of pain. If the revenue keeps coming in, we’ll know in the next three months, then the end will be better.TE: Are remittances picking up?RW: A little. But it may get better next year, and there’s the prospect of tourism returning too. We’re trying to get the tourists starting this winter and prices will be cheap. But from next year onwards, we have to get the summer and the winter. This year, the attraction will be prices. I hope that prices won’t be the attraction next year.TE: To come back to our very first question, what are the concrete steps you took between coming in and now for things here in Colombo to at least look like they have improved?RW: It’s picking up now because with all the turbulence economic activity could not take place. Those economic activities are now taking place. We’ve had quite big festival crowds, people are feeling free and they’re moving around. So they are feeling quite relaxed, more secure. But the turbulence was here. What happened here was originally very nice. I mean, young people protesting, saying the president has to go home. But at some stage they got taken over, they got pushed out. And many of them have spoken to me because they could not take on the more violent crowds. So we restored order here, and we’ve closed that place. We are now preparing another place where young people can go, maybe in a month’s time hope that we can get it ready.TE: As in, a designated protest site?RW: Yeah for anyone, people who want to come and perform, similar to the site they had here earlier in April and early May.TE: In the initial days after you became president, we met some of those people in front of the building here. They were convinced that you were somehow representing or protecting the Rajapaksas. How do you deal with that sort of perception amongst these people?RW: I worked with President [Chandrika] Kumaratunga. I contested in the previous election [in 1999]. And in the [2001] election, I won parliament so we worked together for two years, then the whole thing came apart. Next time I went along with President [Maithripala] Sirisena, who was from another party but we carried him through. We had our own problems. So I have a habit of working with presidents who are on the other side when the situation arises. And there are some ministers who have done the same thing from both sides. And I came in because the situation was so bad, and we had to handle it economically. And I was not even the first choice, they offered it to Sajith Premadasa, the leader of the opposition. He didn’t want to take it, so I came in and tried from that time to bring about a broader based government.TE: Some of the laws you’re going to bring to parliament are going to cause a lot of pain for people. Are you confident you can push them through?RW: We have already said that if you don’t want the IMF, you must come up with alternative plans.TE: Do you foresee at some point in the 2020s or perhaps the 2030s a future President Rajapaksa?RW: I can’t speak to the future.TE: Did you think you’d become president?RW: I didn’t think that my house would be burnt, so, you know...TE: Was it a fair exchange, do you think?RW: No.TE: Do you feel that still—you’re strong politically, but emotionally?RW: Of course you feel it when you go home and you don’t have books to read, or music to listen to.TE: Mr Wickremesinghe, thank you very much for your time.*Editor’s note: The standing order from May allowed for four youth representatives on each oversight committee, not five- <a href="https://www.economist.com/asia/2022/08/16/an-interview-with-the-president-of-sri-lanka" target="_blank">https://www.economist.com/asia/2022/08/16/an-interview-with-the-president-of-sri-lanka</a></blockquote>

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