Although Dr Grant Gibbons now has the unanimous backing of his fellow MPs, his leadership victory over John Barritt was close.

The Royal Gazette understands that Dr. Gibbons defeated the shadow legislative affairs minister by seven votes to five.

Dr Gibbons refused to discuss who ran against him or how close the vote was, although party chairman Wayne Furbert eventually admitted the contest did go to a vote.

Stating the election was an internal UBP matter, Dr Gibbons would only say: "I feel pleased and very gratified that my colleagues unanimously backed me.

"In the UBP, there are a lot of people that could have performed that role. I was not in the room when the process was going on."

Mr. Furbert denied the vote had been secretive, but said: "There was a process and we abided by our constitution and at the end of the day Grant Gibbons was the person that the caucus elected to go with and we are very much behind him.

"There is no secret, we've just not been as up front as we were before. There was bickering in the ranks and people guessing and (former leader) Pam Gordon gave us extra (time) in July, and the process was well thought out.

"There was nothing secret but we want to keep it to ourselves - it's in the Constitution. We are a party of openness, its just this process isn't relevant. There was a vote and Grant won it. We worked it out together."