Sri Lanka's Tamil party Ceylon Workers' Congress (CWC) is set to join the coalition government of President Chandrika Kumaratunga next week, the official Sunday Observer said.

The CWC will extend its support to the United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) around next week probably beginning Aug. 16, the paper quoted high ranking political sources as saying.

The CWC has discussed their possibility of joining UPFA with the government during the last two months and the CWC leader Arumugam Thondaman has met with Indian leaders in capital New Delhi last month in this regard.

It is reported that two ministries will be allocated to CWC when the party joins the government.

The CWC which represents the Tamils of Indian origin who live in the central hilly tea plantations in the country has eight seats in the parliament of 225 members and can help the government to win a working majority in the parliament.

The UPFA government came to power after defeating the United National Party led by former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe in the April 2 parliamentary elections but fell short of seven seats to secure a 113-member majority in the parliament.

Ever since then the UPFA has been struggling to woo opposition MPs to join the minority government but a government campaign to secure the working majority in the parliament has so far failed.

Source: Xinhua