Senior SBS correspondent Brian Thomson, in East Timor to cover the presidential elections this weekend, caught up with Jose Ramos Horta and reflects on a man ready to accept the verdict of the people:
"Your excellency, it's always an honour to greet such an esteemed guest."
And so began my latest interview with Jose Ramos Horta. The words were his, not mine. The good natured sarcasm, the hallmark of the man. The casual banter, the result of more meetings between us than either of us might care to remember.
I first met Jose Ramos Horta in 1997 shortly after moving to Australia. It was 22 years after he'd embarked on what seemed at the time like a fruitless journey to secure independence for his country. And just months after I had even learned of its existence (East Timor never got much of a mention in Scotland!)
I became intrigued by the story. I was producing the late news on SBS at the time and both myself and the then newsreader Indira Naidoo struck up a relationship with him. We would have him in regularly as a guest whenever he was in Australia to visit his mother in her modest Liverpool apartment. There were no official cars or elaborate receptions in those days, I'd meet him at the front door and pay for his taxi. How times have changed!
And it seems like they are about to again.
When East Timor goes to the polls tomorrow the vast majority of the people here are likely to cast their vote for someone else - the result of the fact that he is facing 12 opponents, two with a pedigree every bit as good as his.
If, and when, because it is likely to be when, the poll goes to a second round, it is highly unlikely that Ramos Horta will be one of the names on the ballot paper. The Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao has seen to that. His decision to abandon Ramos Horta in favour of the former army chief is widely interpreted to be the final nail in the coffin for Ramos Horta's presidency.
And he seems to know it.
"If I hand over to a new president I will do so with my conscience at ease happy in the knowledge that the country is no longer in crisis and that the people's confidence in the institutions of state has been restored", he told me.
"But I will always be available to assist my country. If they need me I'll only be an SMS away."
If the pundits are to be believed the second round of the presidential election is likely to be between two former guerilla fighters - the Fretilin candidate Francisco Lu-olo Gutteres and the former army chief Taur Matan Ruak.
"We have to accept graciously the verdict of the people. If I lose to either of them it will be an honour", he says.
"They suffered terribly for their country. While I was in the jungle of New York, they were in the real jungles. They are great patriots".
If only other world leaders could accept the verdict of the people with such grace!
Watch Brian Thomson's interview with Ramos-Horta:
