Won't retire in 2020

Sri Lanka's president announced yesterday he will not retire at the end of his term despite a previous pledge, and said he will seek to form a new government excluding politicians who have committed murder.

Maithripala Sirisena told a public rally in the former war zone of Batticaloa that he had unfinished business to attend to and he no longer intends to retire in 2020 when his five-year term finishes.

"There are many who ask if I will retire in 2020," he said. "I will not retire. There is so much work to be done."

The remarks at a rally in the country's east ended speculation about the 66 year-old's political future, and could escalate a clash with Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

Relations between Sirisena's Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and Wickremesinghe's United National Party (UNP) have soured since both suffered humiliating losses in February's local council elections.

Speculation that Sirisena would run again had compounded problems between the parties as Wickremesinghe has signalled his intention to be a candidate at the next presidential election, due by late 2019.

The row deepened when the UNP, the senior partner in the coalition, accused Sirisena of supporting last month's failed bid to impeach the prime minister.

There was no immediate response from the UNP to Sirisena's announcement, seen as a de facto declaration of his candidacy despite a promise in his 2015 manifesto to be a one-term president.