Today in Victoria: Peter Reith and Michael Kroger battle for Liberal presidency

Whoever wins the presidential vote for control of the Victorian Liberals will face a party so split that the warring won’t end.

Peter Reith, left, and Michael Kroger, are battling for the presidency of the Victorian Liberal Party.

The Reith camp’s guerilla war against Victorian Liberal president Michael Kroger has been impressive in one sense and alarming in another for state leader Matthew Guy.

While the Kroger forces have fired a couple of shots at Reith over, for example, lobbying, the evidence suggests the anti-Kroger camp has been throwing the mud at an impressive and probably more successful rate.

This is good for journalism.

But to what extent is this good for Guy, who is backing Reith but privately has conceded that he would be much better off without the presidential battle?

The Age revealed financial details showing that the Liberal Party is notionally under financial pressure.

The global figure of $1.7 million in looming losses is the same number published recently by The Australian.

It is essentially a shortfall in cash the party hierarchy needs the Cormack Foundation to fill.

At which point, there would be no “crisis’’.

However, the Cormack tribe are only offering $500,000, on the condition that Kroger is removed from the party’s finance committee.

This is a governance issue that the foundation wants to be dealt with.

That is, their view is the president shouldn’t be on the finance committee, even though the incumbent was central to blowing up the Damien Mantach fraud, which cost the Liberal coffers a net $1 million, after Mantach stumped up $500,000 of the $1.5 million he stole.

The weight of The Age’s scoop, Today in Victoria believes, is in the brazenness of the latest leak, which purported to show in fine detail how the party’s coffers were stuffed.

Even though part of that “mess’’ includes $233,000 in losses from Peter Reith’s Enterprise Victoria, where he is chairman.

Guy must be wondering where it will all end.

The answer is that it won’t end now, and it can’t.

Whoever wins the presidential vote will face a party so split that the warring won’t — can’t — end.

The idea that a Reith victory will suddenly lead to peace is plainly silly and naive.

Instead, you can just imagine how the forces so loathed by the anti-Kroger group will respond.

One would guess with maximum revenge.

In a lot of ways, the state parliamentarians will be worse off, with no Kroger to call off the undermining.

SO WHO WILL WIN?

No-one with credibility can say today who will win the State Council presidential ballot.

At best, it is an even money bet.

Both sides are claiming they have in the order of 600 of the 1000-odd votes.

Truth is, it is roughly split 40 per cent Reith, 40 per cent Kroger and then there is the non-factional 20 per cent.

This 20 per cent grouping will decide the ballot.

It is possible to mount arguments of why both will win.

Reith is getting a lot of support among state Liberals, who are utterly furious with Kroger for allegedly allowing young number cruncher Marcus Bastiaan to run unchecked, threatening MPs’ preselections.

This is Reith’s biggest opening and the state MPs are doing an enormous amount of work to help him.

But if you work on the 40-40-20 rule, then the 20 group largely vote on merit and don’t really like being told how to vote.

Kroger has the advantage of having spent years attending branch meetings all over Victoria and he plays well with the delegates.

Obviously not the ones factionally opposed to him, but he has a certain charisma.

As does Reith, who is a more laid back individual, much loved for his ministerial work in the Howard government.

One senior, nonpartisan Liberal has told Today in Victoria that it will be tough for Reith to root out the Kroger support among the minority, 20 per cent of delegates.

Today in Victoria will not be making any predictions on this vote in the knowledge there are powerful reasons for voting for both men.

SO WHEN DID THIS ALL START?

The federal election had a lot to do with it.

Scrapping over campaigning resources had a lot to do with it.

Today in Victoria was told last year that the anti-Kroger group would find and run a candidate to contest the presidential ballot on April 1.

In the end, the anti-Kroger group got two things right.

First was finding Reith; he is a very good candidate.

Second, was milking the fury in the state parliamentary party about Marcus Bastiaan.

This has been utterly toxic for Kroger but also for Guy, who must deal with a whingeing party room that is presenting as one of the weakest Liberal offerings for a long time.

Indeed, maybe its well past time for a shake-up?

BUT GUY GOES WELL

At the same time, Matthew Guy has been an excellent Liberal leader, who on current trends will roll into office with a stiff breeze at his back.

Which makes you wonder why this ballot ever came about.

The upside from Guy’s perspective is that if Reith wins he gets his man to run the party.

But Guy, until this vote, was always seen as an MP who could swing both sides of the factional divide.

Not now.

The downside for him is that if Kroger wins, then Guy will be under all sorts of pressure.

By backing Reith, Guy has become a giant target. Win or lose.

This is not what he wants.

But another senior Liberal loyal to Guy has said that Guy felt he had no option but to strike against Kroger because this was the dominant view of the party room.

It doesn’t get much messier than this.