Former WA treasurer Mike Nahan is expected to become the new leader of the state's Liberal party.
It's understood Dr Nahan will run uncontested on Tuesday, when the party meets for the first time since last weekend's disastrous election loss.
Dr Nahan, 66, has nominated current deputy Liza Harvey to remain in that position, and says the party could fight back at the 2021 election.
"I think they've chosen me because I have experience," he told ABC radio on Sunday.
"I've had some major portfolios, of course, and I will be a leader of a team, not a boss."
The party will determine the shadow cabinet and an upper house leader, moving forward from the post-election blame game.
Former minister Joe Francis spoke candidly to the media last week, saying it was a mistake to stick with Colin Barnett, and Dr Nahan also blasted the former premier for his government's catastrophic loss.
"Clearly, he was not up to the task of leading the team in this campaign and as a result we had a landslide loss," Dr Nahan told the Sunday Times.
He said many in the party had expected Mr Barnett would hand over to someone else last September, like NSW premier Mike Baird and New Zealand prime minister John Key had done.
Dr Nahan said Mr Barnett's failure to go early with the part-privatisation of the electricity distributor Western Power was a problem, and prompted him to threaten to quit as treasurer.
He said Western Power should have been put up for sale in 2013, after the Liberals won comfortably, to help ease debt well before last Saturday's election.
"The majority of the team agreed with my view - the premier didn't," Dr Nahan said.
"It turned out to be a catastrophic mistake."
He said Mr Barnett, who finally relented to a part-sale announced in last May's budget, was not pushing it, which prompted his threat to resign in July.
Mr Barnett told the Sunday Times picking the new leader was up to the party room.
"I will be there, I obviously won't be a candidate and whoever nominates I will cast my vote along with the other members," Mr Barnett said.
Preference counts have been conducted over the weekend as Kalgoorlie remains the last undecided seat, with 644 primary votes separating Liberal candidate Kyran O'Donnell, the Nationals' Tony Crook and Labor's Darren Forster.
Labor have won 41 seats of the 59-seat parliament, and are also predicted to dominate the upper house with 15 members.
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