Rivals invited to work together

Sri Lanka's prime minister invited all political parties in the island nation to work together after his party won the most seats in parliamentary elections and thwarted a political comeback bid by the country's former strongman president.

Officials from Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe's United National Party were working to gain seven more seats to give it an outright majority, and enable Wickremesinghe to be sworn in for a second term as prime minister, a position second to the president in Sri Lanka.

The UNP won 106 seats in Monday's elections, seven short of a majority in the 225-member Parliament. Former leader Mahinda Rajapaksa failed in his attempt at a political comeback seven months after he lost his presidential re-election bid, with his party winning 95 seats.