Former president Maithripala Sirisena never received adequate support from any political party including the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and I am the one who assisted him to get the necessary support from relevant parties, former premier Ranil Wickremesinghe yesterday told the PCoI into the Easter Sunday attacks.

He said this in response to a question asked by the Attorney General's (AG) Department representative on a statement made by Mr. Sirisena that Mr. Wickremesinghe and the Cabinet had only supported him during the first half of his tenure.

Mr. Wickremesinghe said he assisted and motivated Mr. Sirisena to become the common opposition candidate at the 2015 presidential election.

"Prior to this election, I asked former president Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga to be the common opposition candidate, but she said no. There was no one from the United National Party (UNP) to contest as the such a candidate. Then I spoke to Mr. Sirisena and he agreed," he said.

Mr. Wickremesinghe said Mr. Sirisena had to faced several objections from various political parties after he took over the post of SLFP chairman subsequent to becoming the Sri Lankan President.

He said the Oluvil declaration in 2003 and other institutions in the Eastern Province were used divide the Muslim and the Tamil communities and used by the intelligence services to obtain intelligence from the Muslim community on LTTE activities.

Mr. Wickremesinghe said there was a clear difference between the Vadukkodai declaration, which was presented in 1970, demanding a separate state for Tamils and the Oluvil declaration introduced in 2003.

The Commissioner then questioned him on the signing of the ceasefire in 2001.

"Former president Kumaratunga was also interested in peace talks and that the LTTE cadres were completely paralyzed through this. Persons like Karuna Amman left the LTTE and we were also able to weaken international support for the LTTE," Mr. Wickremesinghe said. (Yoshitha Perera)

Pix by Nimalsiri Edirisinghe