Moderate Liberals will rally behind Gisele Kapterian in an attempt to hold the seat of Bradfield against a teal independent challenge after the resignation of Paul Fletcher.
On Tuesday the manager of opposition business announced he will quit federal parliament at the 2025 election, likely to spark a contested preselection for the Liberal to run against Nicolette Boele, an independent.
Fletcher’s departure is another concerning sign for the moderate faction after the Liberal Senate leader and shadow foreign affairs minister, Simon Birmingham, announced his retirement from politics in November.
Guardian Australia understands the faction will rally behind Kapterian, a Salesforce executive and former staffer who had been preselected to run for the Liberals in North Sydney before the electoral commission abolished the seat.
Other potential Liberal candidates include Warren Mundine, who unsuccessfully contested Gilmore at the 2019 election and lives in the electorate, and Paul Nettelbeck, a conservative who previously worked for the Menzies Research Institute and contested Fletcher’s preselection.
At the 2022 election Fletcher held blue-ribbon Bradfield on Sydney’s north shore with a 4.23% margin, after a surprisingly strong showing from Boele, who had a primary vote of 20.89%.
Boele has maintained a campaign presence since the 2022 election, including winning support from MP Kylea Tink who vowed not to run against her, despite large swathes of Tink’s North Sydney electorate being absorbed into Bradfield.
Boele’s campaign was contacted for comment.
Kevin Bonham, an election analyst and psephologist, said the retirement of a sitting MP was generally damaging for that political party’s chances of retaining the seat, with the incumbent factor worth “a point or two” in polling.
He noted that, in previous elections, new independent candidates had generally won seats which did not have a sitting MP contesting the vote.
“The teal wins last time were unusual in that they beat incumbents who weren’t particularly controversial, but it used to be when a new independent would win it was when the seat was vacant,” Bonham said.
“I would suspect the [Climate 200] movement will probably chuck a lot of money into that seat.”
In a statement, Fletcher claimed “the local mood is discernibly different from 2022”.
Bonham noted the potential for some number of Labor voters in 2022 to switch to the Coalition in 2025, which would make it harder for independents in previously Liberal seats to win or retain some seats.
“It’s always a benefit to have a seat vacant unless the sitting member was a dud, but not a massive benefit,” he said.
In a statement Fletcher said that he expected “some outstanding people will put themselves forward to be the next Liberal candidate for Bradfield”, promising the candidate “once chosen through our party processes, will have my full support”.
Last week Fletcher angered supporters of community independents by arguing teal campaigns were a “Green left con job”. He cited as evidence that challengers had “appeared in a range of Liberal seats and made no appearance in Labor seats”.
“The intention was to get people to think, ‘That nice teal candidate could almost be a Liberal, I’ll vote for her.’”
The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, praised Fletcher as “a man of superb character” and a “voice of reason” in the Liberal party.
“A man who believes in accountability and transparency, Paul’s recent speech at the Sydney Institute was a tour de force in exposing the true colour of the teals and their track record,” Dutton said in a statement.
Fletcher, a former minister for communications, said that after a break he intends to return to the private sector with a focus on “the communications, digital technology, infrastructure and transport sectors where I have worked extensively in both public and private sector roles”.
