Sri Lankan president Maithripala Sirisena vows to block Mahinda Rajapakse from

The president had expressed this sentiment in a letter to former President Mahinda Rajapakasa.

President Maithripala Sirisena as the Chairman of the Sri Lanka Freedom (SLFP) asked Mr. Rajapaksa not to raise communalism and requested him to allow a senior SLFPer to be appointed as the Prime Minister if the party gets more than 113 parliamentary seats. But the contentious strategy holds risks for the government’s survival ahead of parliamentary elections next week.

President Sirisena urged Rajapaksa to support senior SLFP members like Nimal Siripala de Silva, John Seniviratne, Chamal Rajapaksa, Athauda Seniviratne, A.H.M. Fowzie, Susil Premjayantha, or Anura Priyadharshana Yapa to be appointed the next Prime Minister.

However, memories of alleged cronyism and creeping authoritarianism under Mr Rajapaksa’s family-dominated regime remain fresh in the minds of voters, with opinion polls suggesting a narrow victory for the coalition led by Ranil Wickremesinghe, the prime minister, and Mr Sirisena.

President Sirisena further notes that he ensured the protection of party members and acted to suppress all violent activities following the polls and recollects the manner in which he assisted Mahinda Rajapaksa until 2005 during all decisive time periods.

Sirisena also revealed that he and Rajapaksa had been good friends until Basil Rajapaksa ruined the friendship.

He has watched aghast as Rajapakse has portrayed himself as UPFA leader during the campaign and has also recoiled at the former president’s nationalist rhetoric. He says that he believes that there is no reason for Rajapaksa to forget the way in which he assisted him – to make Rajapaksa the prime minister in the year 2004.

In his letter, Sirisena accused Rajapakse of fuelling communal hatred on the island which still bears the scars of a 37-year ethnic conflict aimed at creating a homeland for Tamils in Sri Lanka’s north.

The president adds that Mahinda Rajapaksa was well aware of all these actions and add that this has bore testament the fact that life is indeed a “boomerang, to those who wish ill for others”.

Sirisena is the official leader of the UPFA and only reluctantly agreed to allow Rajapakse to stand for the party in the elections. Sirisena was Rajapaksa’s Health Minister until he came forward as the opposition unity candidate to challenge the then president a year ago.

If Rajapaksa had chosen not to contest, as Sirisena had told him to, Sirisena claimed in the letter that he would have been able to win over to the SLFP, the support of the various sections that contributed to his victory during the Presidential Election.