"The PNC has to go to the elections here as a part of decency. There must be no compromise about that. That is what I am saying. We must go as a party which upholds principles of decency, which upholds some kind of ethical standards," Desmond Hoyte, the PNC's leader, told journalists just days ago.

Observers say Hoyte was clearly taking a swipe at former prime minister and founding PNC member, Hamilton Green. The PNC was split following the election in 1992 which it lost to the Cheddi Jagan-led People's Progressive Party (PPP). The PNC had held the reins ol power for 28 years.

Since the elections numerous effort to mend the rift between the two have failed with Hoyte appearing to be holding the hardest line against any possible reconciliation. Even the efforts of Nation of Islam leader, Louis Farrakhan, last month failed to bear any fruit and if anything the rift has only widened.

Analysts say in a country where the population has traditionally voted strictly along racial lines, it is important-for the PNC to remain united going into elections constitutionally due next year. Forty percent of Guyana's's population are descendants of black slaves, 50 percent are of East Indian ancestry and the other 10 percent represent whites, Chinese and Amerlndians.

For several decades the issue of race has been used to divide the country along political and economic lines. During the 28-year rule of the Afro-Guyanese dominated PNC. Blacks here were the political masters, being dominant in the civil service and the army. The Indo-Guyanese on the other hand developed a strong economic base and now controls much of the wealth of the country.

But despite these realities, neither man seems eager to come up with some compromise and analysts feel they will go into the elections on different tickets.

The two men have never really liked or respected each other. Hoyte, a Britishtrained attorney, sees himself as the inter lectual in the party.

Green, a PNC founder and member since the mid-19SOs does not have a uni versity education and has thrived on his image as a "grassroots man, catering to the poor." Green's image has also never been helped by the perception that he was the strongman of the PNC during the Forbes Burnham years and led the fight in some of the party's toughest battles with opponents, including the 1980 slaying of historian Walter Rodney.

Rodney, founder of the opposition Working People's Alliance (WPA) had been leading a multiracial and popular campaign against a new constitution drawn up by the then ruling PNC government when a bomb exploded in his car killing him.

The WPA, prominent journalists, the church and academics charged that agents of the PNC had killed Rodney but officials of the party have consistently denied any link to the historian s death. During the years when Green was actively involved with the PNC, Burnham had declared Guyana a socialist state, nationalized major industries and according to critics at the time was fast becoming a despot.

A controversial constitution, eventually promulgated in October 1980, gave the government sweeping powers and life. Iong immunity from prosecution.

Burnham died in 1985 and Hoyte became president and party leader, but both he and Green have been at loggerheads since. Aides close to Green say he was angry when in 1992 he was not invited by Hoyte to participate in a panel to discuss cmcial electoral reform with former U.S. President Jimmy Carter.

Green later publicly blamed lloyte for bowing to all of Carter's demands, including widening the elections commission and opening the doors to more than 100 international observers led by Carter. The PNC later lost at the polls after nearly 30 years at the helm. In less than six months green was expelled from the party for gross undiscipline and the feuding has continued since.

The rift in the party was also not helped at the level of the local government elections two years ago. Green, who had not long before formed his own outfit, contested the city polls. As it turned out, his Good and Green Guyana (GGG) party ended up taking 12 of the 30 council seats, the largest single bloc at the polls.

He is now a mayor for a second time, giving him a good enough platform to retain a high societal profile and to propagate his political ambitions in the next 12 months.