It was Kumaratunga who had mediated to unite the UNP and the SLFP to defeat Rajapaksa at the last presidential election, and also proposed Maithripala Sirisena to be the common opposition candidate.

The president’s media unit said in a statement yesterday that Rajapaksa had neither been named or accepted as the SLFP’s prime ministerial candidate, but it did not say that he would not be given nominations.

If president Sirisena agrees to give nominations to Rajapaksa, the JHU too, has expressed agreement for the formation of a broad alliance of UNP-SLFP forces that had made him the president.

If this too, fails, it hopes to contest on its own.