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John Sweeney, one of the Scottish National Party’s most experienced and longest-serving politicians, is on the verge of becoming First Minister after being elected as the party’s new leader.
Nominations for the role, released by Humza Yousaf last Monday, closed at noon on Monday.
A last-minute threat to Sweeney’s coronation was averted late on Sunday when SNP campaigner Graham McCormick opted to back Sweeney after “a long and fruitful conversation”, although he claimed to have reached the nomination threshold of 100 signatures from 20 different branches.
McCormick’s supporters argued that it would be undemocratic for the party leader to win without a contest.
On Monday morning, the deputy leader, Keith Brown, denied that McCormick, a long-time critic of the leadership who told the party conference last year that the SNP’s independence strategy was “flatulence in trance”. was “leaned” to withdraw from the race.
Last week Kate Forbes, the former finance secretary who came close to winning the SNP leadership last yeardropped out of the race and endorsed Sweeney, saying she was persuaded by his promise to “govern from the mainstream.”
Sweeney – who offered Forbes a “significant” role in his government – said he wanted to unite the party after last year’s “difficult” leadership election to succeed Nicola Sturgeon.
He told BBC Scotland The Sunday show: “We’ve had a lot of tension over a few issues in parliament and I think we’ve had a couple of tough years.
“The party was engaging, but to be honest, we weren’t as united as we should have been. This became clear to the public.
“The SNP doesn’t look united, the SNP doesn’t look together – the central point of my message is that we need to come together.”
Yusaf dramatically refused on Monday after he tore up a three-year governing alliance with the Scottish Greens, prompting them to back a vote of no confidence brought by the Scottish Conservatives. With his own party two votes short of a Holyrood majority, Yousaf proved unable to muster sufficient cross-party support.
Sweeney, who was Sturgeon’s deputy first minister during the Covid pandemic, is well-respected across the party and was previously leader of the SNP from 2000 to 2004.
He faces the continued challenge of passing bills and budgets as a minority government, as well as polls that show support for the SNP is waning and heavy losses in the upcoming general election at the hands of a resurgent Labor party are likely.
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