Alex Salmond, architect of the failed 2014 Scottish independence referendum, dies

MADRID 12 Oct. () –

This Saturday the former Chief Minister of Scotland Alex Salmond died at the age of 69, leader of the Scottish independence movement and main architect of the 2014 independence referendum that brought a tight victory to the camp favorable to the continuity of Scotland within the United Kingdom.

Salmond reportedly suffered a heart attack after giving a speech at the Inex Gorica Hotel in Ohrid, North Macedonia, during an international conference, according to the Normacedonian newspaper ‘Sloboden Pecat’. An Ohrid Ambulance team tried to revive the former Scottish president, although without success, according to the newspaper.

Salmond participated on Friday in the second edition of the Forum for Cultural Diplomacy, an event co-organized by the office of former Norman Macedonian president Gjorge Ivanov, president of the country between 2009 and 2019, the International Center for the Alliance of Civilizations and the Institute for Diplomacy Berlin Cultural.

When he took command of the Scottish National Party in 1990, it was a minor party, but he managed to turn it into the largest party in Scotland and govern with absolute majorities with a clearly pro-independence discourse. The zenith of his mandate was the 2014 referendum, in which permanence was imposed by 55 to 45 percent.

After leaving power, he faced his successor, Nicola Sturgeon, whom he criticized for her policies and for not defending him in his sexual assault cases of which he was finally acquitted in 2020. After leaving the party in 2018, he founded and led the independence party Alba .

Alba has already requested the British Foreign Office to repatriate Salmond’s body.