UN Chief congratulates new government in Sri Lanka

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said that Sri Lanka’s voters endorsed his government as parliamentary election results showed his party locked in a tight battle for power with allies of former leader Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Deshapriya said he expected to release final party positions by midday Tuesday, while individual votes garnered by candidates would be announced later.

While stopping short of proclaiming victory for his party in Monday’s legislative elections, Wickremesinghe said the outcome was an endorsement of the “January 8 revolution”, referring to the defeat of long-time leader Mahinda Rajapakse in a presidential poll.

Issuing a special statement, President Maithripala Sirisena said that the current elections have been the most peaceful in independent Sri Lanka.

Sirisena had called the election a year ahead of schedule in a bid to strengthen his numbers in the parliament so he could push through promised reforms.

A group of Sirisena supporters is likely to join a broad-based national unity government led by Wickremesinghe.

“My dream of becoming prime minister has faded away”, Rajapakse told AFP.

All eyes will also be on President Sirisena, who heads the UPFA and its main constituent, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, to see if he will pull members from the combine, to back the Wickremesinghe government.

The prime minister acts for the president when he is absent and replaces him if he is impeached, incapacitated or dies.

The former two-time president was quoted in the media reports as saying that he conceded defeat.

“I will continue to engage in politics in keeping with the people’s mandate and I will function within parliament to safeguard the nation and the democratic system”, Rajapaksa said in a brief statement. Some of them now face investigations or lawsuits for corruption, misuse of power, and even murder. “We arrested 32 people today for trying to impersonate and for other minor offenses”, police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekera said.

Rajapaksa had been seeking an extended period of rule after abolishing a two-term limit for presidents when he lost in his attempt to win a third term. Just months before that election, Rajapaksa’s administration ended Sri Lanka’s decades old civil war with an overwhelming military victory over Tamil separatists. But he is accused of using his popularity to take control of all government institutions, including Parliament, the courts and the armed forces.