Political affairs chief of the Chinese embassy Ren Faqiang is behind this campaign and is making arrangements for his government to fund Rajapaksa’s campaign, it says.

In the past few months, Faqiang had fabricated falsehoods in order to create divisions between president Maithripala Sirisena and prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

This Chinese diplomat also has had close connections with top government politicians.

Now, he is printing and distributing an astrology paper and a tabloid newspaper, both in Sinhala, which criticize the government and promote Rajapaksa, says the newspaper.

During the Rajapaksa regime, the Chinese government enjoyed the monopoly of all development project contracts in Sri Lanka and Rajapaksa family members had been paid massive commissions.

The Chinese companies had made the biggest bids for these projects.

The Chinese ambassador has reprimanded Faqiang and warned that this could lead to a diplomatic issue.

Faqiang has also obtained various perks from Chinese businessmen and his government has extended his tenure in Colombo to four years.

‘Sathhanda’ also reports that former president Chandrika Kumaratunga and the Indian government are in a campaign to prevent Rajapaksa from getting UPFA nominations.