COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s former army chief said today he would work to strengthen democracy, curb corruption and safeguard media freedom in this Indian Ocean island nation if he is elected president.

The January 26 presidential election pits Gen Sarath Fonseka against President Mahinda Rajapaksa, the two men regarded as the architects of the government’s victory over the Tamil Tiger rebels last May.

Fonseka, the candidate of a coalition of opposition parties, accused Rajapaksa of leading “a greedy government mired in corruption” and pledged to bring in new regulations to combat fraud and graft.

“Life is hard under the Rajapaksas. Corruption, bribery, nepotism and ego-boosting extravagance is holding back the development of our country,” Fonseka said in a statement announcing his platform. Fonseka said as president he would form a caretaker Cabinet of all the parties and work to amend the constitution to abolish the powerful executive presidency and return power to parliament.

He also promised to abolish a recently revived press council, which has the authority to jail journalists and has been criticised as an undemocratic tool meant to suppress criticism of the government. Rajapaksa, who still has two years left in his six-year term, called early elections to take advantage of his popularity after government forces ended the quarter-century civil war.

The government’s victory made Rajapaksa and Fonseka heroes among the country’s Sinhalese majority. But Fonseka’s surprise candidacy has divided the Sinhalese vote and made the minority Tamils potential kingmakers. Fonseka pledged to immediately resettle the remaining displaced civilians and to provide them with aid.