my guest today is president luis lacalle pou. now, he is a fan of unfettered free market economics. swim against the tide of public opinion in latin america? president luis lacalle pou, welcome to hardtalk. thank you very much. mr president, what is it like being a centre—right politician on a continent which is quite clearly moving to the centre—left? you are swimming against the political tide. we have a strong a coalition of five parties that supported this government. you have for the right, centre—right, centre and centre—left. and i have to balance between these five parties. we have a programme that we took to the election to the citizens. you will not be able to find centre—right. now to your question... the question is important because you're a relatively small country which depends upon strong alliances with its neighbours, not least in the trading block with argentina, paraguay and brazil. and if one looks at the wider region, you have a problem because the people you need to work with have very different politics from yours. you know that my great—grandfather used to spe