When Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga sat down with Australian journalist Michael Maher in July 2005 for an interview on the ABC program Foreign Correspondent, her presidency was drawing to a close. Asked about the allure of supreme political office, Sri Lanka’s first female president brushed aside the notion that she was captivated by high status. It's always mesmerizing to study how powerful people of the world perceive power. And Kumaratunga said: "I'm a workaholic, I like to work. And I'm in this, not to fill my pockets like lots of others, or because the idea of power thrills me - I find it a joke."
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