BBC Online :
Sri Lanka will hold presidential elections in January, one year ahead of schedule, the government’s information minister says.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa is expected to seek a third term at the elections.
Rajapaksa won a landslide victory in January 2010, and is currently serving a six-year term.
In September 2010, Sri Lankan MPs voted to approve constitutional amendments allowing Rajapaksa to seek an unlimited number of presidential terms.
Critics had argued that the amendments could lead to dictatorship, and the main opposition United National Party boycotted the vote.
Rajapaksa first won the presidency in 2005 when Sri Lanka was in the middle of a tenuous ceasefire agreement with the Tamil Tiger rebels.
He is popular with much of the country’s Sinhalese majority for presiding over the defeat of the Tamil Tiger rebels in 2009.
Sri Lanka will hold presidential elections in January, one year ahead of schedule, the government’s information minister says.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa is expected to seek a third term at the elections.
Rajapaksa won a landslide victory in January 2010, and is currently serving a six-year term.
In September 2010, Sri Lankan MPs voted to approve constitutional amendments allowing Rajapaksa to seek an unlimited number of presidential terms.
Critics had argued that the amendments could lead to dictatorship, and the main opposition United National Party boycotted the vote.
Rajapaksa first won the presidency in 2005 when Sri Lanka was in the middle of a tenuous ceasefire agreement with the Tamil Tiger rebels.
He is popular with much of the country’s Sinhalese majority for presiding over the defeat of the Tamil Tiger rebels in 2009.
