Sri Lanka ruling party claims \\\'Western\\\' push for regime change

COLOMBO, Dec 3 (AFP): Sri Lanka's ruling party Wednesday expressed fears of a "Western conspiracy" to topple President Mahinda Rajapakse who faces an unexpected challenge at upcoming polls from his former health minister.
Plantations Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe said unnamed Western nations were trying to destabilise the country and were secretly backing Maithripala Sirisena, who quit the government last month to mount a challenge against his one-time boss.
Rajapakse, the region's longest serving ruler, called the election for January 8, two years ahead of schedule in a bid for an unprecedented third term.
Sirisena's defection is seen as a major threat to Rajapakse's authority, which also comes after his ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party suffered a drop in popularity at local elections held in September.
"There is a systematic campaign to destabilise Sri Lanka," said Samarasinghe, who is also Rajapakse's special envoy on human rights. "Maithripala Sirisena entering as a candidate is part of that Western conspiracy."
Sri Lanka faces international censure over Colombo's failure to investigate allegations that its troops killed up to 40,000 ethnic minority Tamil civilians in the final stages of the separatist war in 2009.
Rajapakse has used criticism of his resistance to a UN-mandated probe into the allegations to strengthen his nationalistic credentials among the ethnic majority Sinhalese community.