Governor Sir John Vereker may have to call a fresh election if the July 24 poll is split and the parties can't come to an agreement on who will govern, Government House said yesterday.

Deputy Governor Tim Gurney said the Constitution states the Governor has "discretion" to appoint as Premier "the member of the House of Assembly who appears to him best able to command the confidence of the majority of members of that House".

But the constitution is not clear about what happens if the parties are tied.

If next month's election ends deadlocked at 18-18, the Governor would likely call Premier Jennifer Smith and Opposition Leader Grant Gibbons together to ask them to try to seek agreement on how to govern.

If that fails, Sir John may have to call fresh elections, said Mr. Gurney.

Mr. Gurney said the question of a tied parliament was also discussed in Government House prior to the 1998 election.

Opinion polls show the two main parties running close together, although one poll last week in the Bermuda Sun gave the UBP a ten percent lead over the PLP. The UBP had 33.9 percent, the PLP (23.8 percent), with 24.9 percent undecided.

Mr. Gurney told The Royal Gazette yesterday: "Section 58 (1) of the Constitution sets out how the Governor appoints a Premier. The Constitution is not specific where there is no clear majority. "This could, and I stress could, involve the Governor discussing the situation with both party leaders and trying to arrive at an agreed view.

"If this proved impossible to reach, it might be for the Governor to call another election as set out in Section 58, where he has discretion.

"If there is clearly no one that commands that majority, it is highly likely that he would ask them to arrive at some sort of agreement.

"If they can't, the Governor would have to consider whether to call another election."

The issue of whether Jennifer Smith could carry on as premier was raised last year after she narrowly escape being ousted as parliamentary leader when a group of rebel backbenchers voted for her to resign.

Theoretically, if a vote of confidence was called on Ms Smith in the House of Assembly and the rebel PLP MPs had voted with the Opposition, the Premier would not longer have been able to continue in office because she did not command the support of the majority of MPs.