Will work with rivals: Wickremesinghe

Colombo: Ranil Wickremesinghe, who is set to return as Premier for a fourth term, on Wednesday asked all political parties in Sri Lanka to work together in an effort to heal the divisions of the past, a day after he thwarted ex-president Mahinda Rajapaksa's bid to stage a political comeback.

Wickremesinghe, 66, who will be sworn in as new Prime Minister on Thursday, said he will continue the mandate for good governance given in parliamentary polls and work together with all parties in a national government for 2-3 years. "The parliamentary elections of August 17 confirms the January 8 revolution," he said, referring to the presidential election held in January in which President Rajapaksa had lost.

"We can't turn back," Wickremesinghe said, adding he will build a consensus on the new government's national policy. "I have got a mandate to put our plan before Parliament, so that we could arrive at a consensus and build a national framework within which we will do our politics," he said, striking a reconciliatory note. "Through this approach ... all parties could work together either in government holding a ministerial position or in Parliament through the oversight committees."

Wickremesinghe's United National Party (UNP) coalition won 106 seats in Monday's parliamentary election, just 7 short of a simple majority in the 225-member assembly but enough to form a government. He was certain to receive the majority support from Rajapaksa's United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) which has 95 seats.

The minority Tamil National Alliance swept the ethnic Tamil-majority Northern and Eastern provinces with 16 seats. The veteran reformist was handpicked by President Maithripala Sirisena to lead a minority government after the longtime president Rajapaksa was defeated in January elections.

Rajapaksa, 69, contested the parliamentary elections held on Monday to return to the power as prime minister. A group of Sirisena supporters is likely to join a broad- based national unity government led by Wickremesinghe. Wickremesinghe became prime minister for the first time in May 1993, when a suicide bomber assassinated president Ranasinghe Premadasa. He got his second chance in 2002, when he was credited with pulling the country out of recession. A total of 196 members have been elected for a five-year term while 29 will be appointed based on the national proportion of votes polled by each party.