Plans to boost the campaign funds of women and ethnic minority candidates in a bid to make Liberal Democrat MPs more representative are set to spark a row.
Leader Sir Menzies Campbell will unveil the first £200,000 tranche of a new "equality fund" as part of his mission to modernise the look of the party. None of the party's current team of 63 MPs are Black or Asian and just nine are female.
But President Simon Hughes - one of the leading campaigners for change - warned the plans would be "hotly contested" by activists at the party's conference in Brighton this week.
There were serious concerns over the idea of seats being targeted because of the gender or ethnicity of the hopefuls fighting them, he conceded.
An amendment tabled by the local party in East Surrey would reject such considerations.
Mr Hughes also hit out at the "nonsense" of the party's failure to gather data in the past on the numbers of ethnic and female candidates being selected.
Figures are now being compiled and show that of 22 new candidates chosen since the last election, just under a third are women and none from ethnic minorities.
Under the new proposals, constituencies will be encouraged to pick more diverse hopefuls with the promise of extra cash to pay for their election bid. Party chiefs have denied it constituted a "bribe" or an admission of failure - insisting it was an "incentive".
They have ruled out any form of all-women shortlists or "A-lists" of preferred candidates, which have caused controversy in Labour and the Tories.
The launch comes as the gathering - the first for Sir Menzies as leader - continued to be dominated by an escalating row over tax policy. Three of his frontbench spokesmen are now among those demanding he reverse a plan to drop the party's commitment to a 50p top rate of tax on high earners.
