(corrects day of interview in third paragraph)
* Deputy Finance Minister says end-January election planned
* Confident government will win
* Aims to stabilise rupee at current 114 to 115 vs dollar
* May buy more gold from IMF
* C.bank says should be close to IMF 2009 deficit target (Updates throughout with deputy finance minister)
By Shihar Aneez and Nopporn Wong-Anan
COLOMBO/SINGAPORE, Nov 26 (Reuters) - Sri Lanka aims to stabilise its rising currency at current levels and is confident the government will overcome political uncertainty by winning a January election, Deputy Finance Minister Sarath Amunugama said.
The central bank has allowed a controlled rise in the rupee, which hit a seven month high last week, but Amunugama said it will maintain its current level.
"We have more or less stabilised it around 114-115 rupees to a dollar and I think that will continue...There won't be a wide fluctuation. The government will intervene," Amunugama told Reuters on Thursday in Singapore.
The currency and a surging stock market have both dipped in the past week, with investors concerned about the potential for a defeat for President Mahinda Rajapaksa after the government said last month it would hold elections by April.
"The election will be held at the end of January. We are confident the president will win 70 percent of the votes," said Amunugama on the sidelines of an investor roadshow.
Sri Lanka's main opposition party said on Thursday it will support former army chief Sarath Fonseka, widely credited for winning the war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, as a candidate for presidential elections.
Sri Lanka is still recovering from the global financial crisis and a 25-year civil war, which ended in May. The central bank last week cut its policy rates for the sixth time this year to multi-year lows, to spur faltering growth.
A central bank official said in Colombo on Thursday that Sri Lanka should come "very close" to meeting 2009 revenue and budget deficit targets agreed with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in return for a $2.6 billion loan.
The island nation's revenue in the first nine months totalled 522 billion rupees ($4.56 billion), according to the central bank's latest provisional data.
Nandalal Weerasinghe, an assistant governor at the central bank, said Sri Lanka has to raise total revenue to 723 billion rupees by end 2009 under a restrained expenditure regime to achieve a 7 percent deficit target set by the IMF.
"We will be very close to the target. If the revenue does not come for a reason that is beyond our policy control, no one can do anything. Then that has to be accepted," Weerasinghe told Reuters in a separate interview in Colombo.
The global lender on Friday said that the budget deficit targets for both this and next year were challenging due to slow revenue growth, but still within reach.
The country's reserves have been boosted to a record $5.2 billion, and Amunugama said the country was considering buying more gold from the IMF, after the IMF on Wednesday said it had sold 10 tons of gold to Sri Lanka's central bank. (Writing by Neil Chatterjee; editing by Philippa Fletcher) ((shihar.aneez@thomsonreuters.com; +94-11-237-5903; Reuters Messaging; shihar.aneez.reuters.com@reuters.net)) ((If you have a query or comment on this story, send an email to news.feedback.asia@thomsonreuters.com))