UNP Kurunegala District parliamentarian Dayasiri Jayasekara speaking to the Daily Mirror online on the new developments with regard to the leadership of the UNP stated that the people are awaiting a change that would drive the UNP to victory at an election.

"We hope that the UNP could start afresh from January next year, the need of the hour is a party that understands the pulse of the people, a party that serves the common man," he said.

The Deputy leader of the UNP Karu Jayasuriya earlier in the day made an announcement that he would contest the current UNP leader Ranil Wickremasinghe. Jayasekara pointed out that the main focus should be on uniting all factions within the UNP to take on the government, "The partys’ ground level support has deteriorated drastically, even though the government won the local government polls there is a lot of discontent among the people. Even hard core SLFP'ers are fed up with the working of the current regime. What the party needs is a leadership that can unite all of these people. A leadership that will drive the ground level UNP voter and the floating voter towards the polling station," he said.

He went on to point on with regard to the leadership which is to be contested that he believes the change should be a change that would be accepted by everyone, "The change we are expecting is a change that should be agreed upon by everyone, it should consist of a change that would harness the best of all individuals who are willing to support the party and not only the choice of a few individuals," he said. He went onto point out that the current development is a part of the internal dialogue that has been brewing within the party and must not be portrayed as a division. "This is an internal problem and I believe the party has the capability to solve this amicably within the internal mechanisms," he said.

Commenting on the recent crossover of UNP Parliamentarian Mohan Lal Grero, Jayasekara said, the reasoning behind the cross-over was laughable. "The education sector of this country is in tatters with the government not even able to set a proper examination paper to the students, the University system is in complete jeopardy so for Grero to state that he commends the initiatives of the governments is only laughable, it's not the future of the children of the country that he had in mind but the future of his own children when he crossed over," he added. (Hafeel Farisz)