Smith loyalists and rebel supporters were agreed last night - Sunday's leadership battle could be just the start of further splits.

One rebel delegate said that although they had been disappointed with the compromise candidacy of Alex Scott, it would still take one final push for the Brown team to be in charge.

He said Mr. Scott's health might fail, adding: "Ewart is well poised as Deputy leader."

He indicated that Dr. Brown was allied with Randy Horton and Wayne Perinchief.

Meanwhile a Smith loyalist MP said there were MPs who had barely concealed ambitions, despite the election of the new team.

"There are some who still want the leadership as well, you could tell they were hesitating about who was going to be put forward. It was clear to me.

"This might just be round one. You get the egos of people who want to be there."

Delegates were angry at the bypassing of the PLP constitution as rebels hijacked the party rules which had barred a leadership challenge for another four years, said the MP.

Asked if the PLP constitution was now dead in the water, the MP said: "That could be the case. That was my primary concern."

The Premier had graciously stepped down rather than put the party through the electorally damaging split like the one suffered when Dame Lois Browne-Evans expelled Gilbert Darrell and his supporters who later formed the NLP, said the source.

Legislators, who spent their time making laws, should know how to follow rules, the MP said.

"It's really easy to change the rules. You get three branches and you call a conference and do it."

But the MP doubted the rebels had the support.

"Can we trust what they say again? For someone aspiring to be a leader to say we did deceive you, we did fool you? Good God."

"The question is, is the party still split between the parliamentary group and the party as a whole?

"There's some damage which has been done, feelings are hurt, there's some trust issues.

"In November they said it's cool, we can live with that woman and she was given an unopposed mandate for four years. I would venture a bet that people in the party are still not happy and will find it very difficult to forgive."

He said the splits would have continued if Dr. Brown had been given the top job.

"There's quite a lot of people saying Jennifer Smith has to go, but anybody but Brown. He doesn't command as much support as he would like to think for some of the same reasons they complained about Jennifer Smith.