Much of the blame for Saturday's humiliating Northern Territory election loss is being laid at the feet of Country Liberals Chief Minister Adam Giles.
There are still six seats to be settled in the Legislative Assembly of 25, with Labor taking 15 and independents holding three; the CLP have so far only one confirmed seat, with the possibility of picking up another two.
It's the first one-term government in NT history. Mr Giles still does not know if he has resecured his Alice Springs seat of Braitling, which he held by 19.2 per cent.
Former deputy chief minister Robyn Lambley, who left the party last year and has been re-elected as an independent for Araluen, pointed the finger at Mr Giles.
"He divided us all, he played Chinese whispers constantly ... he really showed no loyalty to us at all, he undermined us, he criticised us, he was a very poor leader," she told the ABC.
Independent Speaker Kezia Purick, who also left the party last year, said she was "not convinced the CLP as a brand and a party can rise again".
She said there was a "serious trust deficit" that began when Mr Giles rolled leader Terry Mills seven months after the 2012 election.
"I don't think he has the capacity for a lot of forward thinking to realise what the consequences may have been and then to manage them accordingly," Ms Purick told the ABC.
Meanwhile, former CLP chief minister Shane Stone said he would do everything in his power to prevent Mr Giles from succeeding at Senate pre-selection if he put his hand up.
"I don't think he's the right person we should be sending to Canberra and the CLP should not reward a poor result and bad behaviour," he told the ABC.
Jodeen Carney, who led the CLP in opposition from 2005 to 2008, agreed that the federal coalition shouldn't go anywhere near Mr Giles.
"The Liberal party's got its own problems and why it would come in and pick up a three-legged horse from the NT is beyond me; it's unlikely to do it," she told AAP.
She was another senior female figure who quit the party last year.
"Adam had a very hands-off approach to disciplining his colleagues on the one hand, but also was hands-free when it came to leading them ... as a leader you do have that responsibility to keep your troops in line, and he completely abrogated that responsibility," she said.
The so-far sole surviving CLP member, Lia Finocchiaro, escaped the bloodbath because she had kept her head down and allowed her "narcissistic cowboy" colleagues to take the heat for trashing the party's brand, Ms Carney said.
The crushing defeat was an opportunity for the party to rebuild and modernise, she said, adding that party president Tory Mencshelyi was doing the decent thing by indicating she would resign at the September conference.
