COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s ruling party has chosen Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa as its next presidential candidate when the country votes for a successor to Chandrika Kumaratunga, government sources said on Wednesday. Sri Lanka’s main political parties are locked in a bitter feud over the timing of the next poll, with the main opposition UNP in full election mode having already nominated former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe as its presidential candidate.

First elected president in 1994, Kumaratunga argues her second and final six-year term should end in late 2006. But she went for re-election a year early, and Wickremesinghe, who heads the UNP, is adamant that means her second term ends this year. The island’s elections commissioner will have the final say — he must call the election by next month if it is to be held this year.

“(Rajapaksa) was the obvious choice from the beginning,” a senior government source said on condition of anonymity, adding the government was poised to ratify the nomination publicly within days.

Kumaratunga’s Sri Lanka Freedom Party will nominate her brother, Tourism Minister Anura Bandaranaike — who also had designs on the presidency — to take over as prime minister from Rajapaksa, the source said.—Reuters