Former Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa's decision to hold snap polls in 2014 was a ploy to win Indian backing and stave off human rights abuse allegations at the UN, a minister in President Maithripala Sirisena-led government has alleged.
Social Empowerment and Welfare Minister SB Dissanayake said the former strongman had intended to win the presidential election so that he could ask India to support him in negating the war crime allegations at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC).
"He wanted to win it and then tell India, please back me. I will say if he had won Sri Lanka, he would have faced sanctions almost immediately," Dissanayake said.
Rajapaksa's tenure was scheduled to end in January 2016, but he called a snap presidential election in November 2014.
He was defeated by Sirisena who ended his nearly a decade-long rule.
Sirisena's win enabled the international community along with the UNHRC to adopt a softer approach towards Sri Lanka as it was given more time to achieve reconciliation with the Tamil minority and to set up human rights accountability mechanisms.
Rajapaksa's government was under pressure after three consecutive UNHRC resolutions. He dubbed all resolutions as interfering in Sri Lanka's sovereignty.
Since Rajapaksa's defeat, his Sri Lanka Freedom Party remains divided with one group forming the opposition in the Parliament and the other group including ministers like Dissanayake backing Sirisena in the unity government.
According to the UN figures, up to 40,000 civilians were killed by the security forces during Rajapaksa's regime that brought the nearly three-decade-long civil war to an end by defeating the LTTE.
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