Ash Regan, Humza Yousaf and Kate Forbes are running for Scottish Chief Minister
March 12 () –
This Monday the primary elections of the Scottish National Party (SNP) begin in which the independentist formation will choose the one who will be the successor to Nicola Sturgeon after her surprising resignation. Two women and one man of Pakistani origin, Ash Regan, Kate Forbes and Humza Yousaf, are running for the position of Scottish Chief Minister.
The SNP is the main party in the Holyrood Parliament and maintains a clearly pro-independence position combined with policies similar to traditional social democracy. In the upcoming elections, his political dominance could be seriously undermined by the rise of former Prime Minister Alex Salmond’s Alba Party, which will compete with the SNP for independence votes.
The primary voting begins at noon this Monday, March 13, and will last until noon on March 27, a long process in which the 100,000 members of the SNP will be able to express their preferences. New affiliates are not admitted to prevent them from maliciously influencing the vote.
At the moment the polls show two clear favorites, Humza Yousaf and Kate Forbes. The first is the current Scottish Government Health Minister and has received the support of practically the entire party apparatus and the current government. However, Forbes has a long history of support among the party’s rank and file.
The latest Ipsos poll for Channel 4 News puts Forbes eight points ahead of Forbes, although this is a general population poll, when limited to SNP voters in 2021 it’s Yousaf who leads , although only by one point.
Even this last piece of information could be misleading, since SNP voters do not coincide with party affiliates, so the result is an unknown quantity. In fact, a third of those surveyed consider that none of the three candidates would make a good chief minister and 11 percent do not know or do not answer.
LOOKING FOR UNITY
Each of the affiliates will be able to vote for one, two or three candidates, a system designed to avoid a campaign that divides the party and that the candidates also court the supporters of their rivals.
If one of the candidates receives more than half of the first options, he will be automatically chosen. If not, the third in preferences will be eliminated and the second options will be added. The process is repeated until one of the three has more than half the votes.
Thus, on March 27 there will be a successor to Sturgeon at the head of the SNP who will, however, have to convince the party’s deputies and their environmental allies to continue at the head of the Scottish Government. One of the favorites, Yousaf, has not ruled out calling early elections after the primaries.
THE CANDIDATES
Forbes, just 32 years old, was appointed Finance Counselor in 2018, managed shortly after taking office to present and approve public accounts that had cost her predecessor, Derek Mackay, his job.
Forbes was born in the Scottish Highlands and studied at a Scottish Gaelic school and in India. She was elected MP for Holyrood in 2016 with a campaign focused on denouncing the pay gap for women and unemployment in the Highlands.
She has been the first Scottish Government adviser not to have given up her maternity leave and is a member of the Free Church of Scotland. However, she herself has stressed that this religious affiliation will not prevent her from following the party line on issues that are initially conflicting, such as abortion or homosexual marriage.
The other great favorite is Humza Yousaf, 37, who is the current Minister of Health and bases his campaign on his experience in public management positions and the commitment to a continuous policy. He is the natural successor to Sturgeon, with whom he shares the Glasgow constituency.
He has been an MP since 2011 and took office before Queen Elizabeth II in English and Urdu, a Pakistani language. When he was re-elected in 2016 he wore both the traditional Scottish kilt and the Pakistani sherwani. He was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Development in 2012 and as Minister of Health he faced the coronavirus pandemic.
The latest in dispute is Ash Regan, a rebel MP who resigned from her Government post in Community Safety in 2022 in protest of the controversial Gender Recognition Reform Act. She is 48 years old, she is an MP for Edinburgh East and she intends to “invigorate” the party.
She has focused her campaign on Scottish independence and one of her main achievements is defeating then Labor Party leader Kezia Dogdale in the 2016 Scottish election.
