Nominations for the election of the new leader of the Scottish National party have closed with Humza Yousaf, Kate Forbes and Ash Regan the three candidates in the race. Why is the SNP electing a new leader? The SNP is holding its first contested leadership election in nearly 20 years after Nicola Sturgeon, who was elected unopposed in November 2014, shocked her party by announcing on 15 February she was to quit. She said that after eight years as first minister and seven years as deputy first minister, she had become fatigued and believed the party needed a new leader to reinvigorate the campaign for independence. Who is standing to succeed her?
Nominations for the leadership contest closed at noon on Friday, with three contenders meeting the threshold. They are: Yousaf, the embattled health secretary who is seen as Sturgeon’s favoured successor but has faced opposition calls to quit because of several crises in the NHS; Forbes, the finance secretary who has endured a torrid few days defending her socially conservative beliefs that contradict key SNP policies on gay rights, gender recognition and abortion; and Regan, a former junior minister who quit the government to protest against the party’s plans to scrap gender recognition certificates. What happens next? Voting by SNP members opens at noon on 13 March. The party’s approximately 100,000 members will receive electronic ballot papers and for those without email addresses physical papers. The vote closes at noon on 27 March, with the result expected to be declared that day. How will the winner be elected? This election is being carried out using the single transferable vote system, whereby voters are asked to rank all three candidates in order of preference. They can choose to select only one or two candidates if they wish. The first-preference votes on all the ballot papers are then added up: if no candidate gets 50% plus one of the votes, the third-placed candidate is disqualified. The second-preference votes cast by their supporters for either of the other two candidates are then added to their totals. That vote redistribution is expected to give the winning candidate their overall majority.
This system puts the frontrunners under great pressure to appeal to members who support the outside candidate, in this case Regan, so they attract more second-preference votes. In this contest, it is quite possible Forbes will attract more Regan supporters because they are both critical of gender recognition changes and make pro-business policies central to their campaigns. In that scenario, Yousaf could lose to Forbes even if he has most first-preference votes. How will the winner become first minister? After her successor is elected, Sturgeon will tender her resignation to the king. In a special session of the Scottish parliament, the next first minister will be voted in by MSPs one or two days after the SNP leadership contest closes. The presiding officer recommends the winner be made first minister to the king. The first minister-elect is then sworn in by Scotland’s most senior judges at the court of session in Edinburgh. The first minister also becomes custodian of the Great Seal of Scotland, the ceremonial mould that, under a tradition dating back to 1094, creates the wax seals that confirm new legislation has had the approval of the monarch.