COLOMBO (AFP) - Sri Lanka's sidelined military chief, General Sarath Fonseka, will stand against President Mahinda Rajapakse in elections to held before April, a press report said Sunday.

The Sunday Times newspaper here said Fonseka, who is credited with crushing Tamil Tiger separatists earlier this year, had been chosen by a consortium of opposition parties to be their presidential nominee.

Fonseka has been at loggerheads with the government in recent months after he was removed as army chief and made chief of defence staff, a more ceremonial post with no command responsibilities.

"Constituent parties of the newly formed (opposition) United National Front reached consensus this week that General Sarath Fonseka should be their common candidate," the Sunday Times said.

There was no immediate comment from Fonseka, who returned to the island last week after a controversial visit to the United States where the Department of Homeland Security wanted to question him about alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka.

Fonseka announced during his US visit that he was willing to shed his uniform and take up "social work" if politicians did not take advantage of the end of the decades-old separatist conflict to ensure economic revival.

Sri Lanka's main opposition leader, Ranil Wickremesinghe, declined comment on the news report, but said his new alliance was keen to abolish the executive presidency.

The government announced last month that it would hold early presidential and parliamentary elections as the ruling party moved to gain from strong public support after its defeat of the Tamil Tiger rebels in May.

Rajapakse narrowly won the November 2005 presidential election on a pledge to abolish the presidency, but has since said he wanted to contest for a second term.