Scottish Parliament election, 2016

Scottish Parliament election, 2016

5 May 2016

All 129 seats to the Scottish Parliament 65 seats needed for a majority   First party Second party Third party   Leader Nicola Sturgeon Kezia Dugdale Ruth Davidson Party SNP Labour Conservative Leader since 14 November 2014 15 August 2015 4 November 2011 Leader's seat Glasgow Southside Lothian (List) standing in Lothian (List) and Edinburgh Eastern Glasgow (List) standing in Lothian (List) and Edinburgh Central Last election 69 seats, 44.0% 37 seats, 26.3% 15 seats, 12.4% Current seats 64 38 15 Seats Needed 1 27 50   Fourth party Fifth party   Leader Willie Rennie Patrick Harvie and Maggie Chapman Party Liberal Democrats Green Leader since 17 May 2011 Leader's seat Mid Scotland and Fife (List) standing in North East Fife Glasgow (List) standing in Glasgow Kelvin (Harvie) standing in NE Scotland (List) (Chapman) Last election 5 seats, 5.2% 2 seats, 4.4% Current seats 5 2 Seats Needed 60 63

First Minister before election Nicola Sturgeon SNP Elected First Minister TBC

The 2016 Scottish Parliament election is to be held on Thursday 5 May 2016^[1] to elect 129 members to the Scottish Parliament. It will be the fifth general election since the parliament was established in 1999.

Date

Under the Scotland Act 1998, an ordinary general election to the Scottish Parliament would normally have been held on the first Thursday in May four years after the 2011 election, i.e. in May 2015.^[2] In May 2010, the new UK Government stated in the coalition agreement that the next United Kingdom general election would also be held in May 2015.^[3] This proposal was criticised by the Scottish National Party and Labour, as it had been recommended after the 2007 election that elections with different voting systems should be held on separate days: a recommendation which all of the political parties had then accepted.^[4] In response to this criticism, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg offered the right to vary the date of the Scottish Parliament election by a year either way.^[5] All the main political parties then stated their support for delaying the election by a year.^[6][7] The Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, a statute of the Westminster Parliament, moved the date of the Scottish Parliament general election to 5 May 2016.^[1]

The date of the poll may be varied by up to one month either way by the monarch, on the proposal of the Presiding Officer.^[2]

If Parliament itself resolves that it should be dissolved, with at least two-thirds of the Members (i.e. 86 Members) voting in favour, the Presiding Officer proposes a date for an extraordinary general election and the Parliament is dissolved by the monarch by royal proclamation.

It does not necessarily require a two-thirds majority to precipitate an extraordinary general election, because under the Scotland Act Parliament is also dissolved if it fails to nominate one of its members to be First Minister within certain time limits, irrespective of whether at the beginning or in the middle of a parliamentary term. Therefore, if the First Minister resigned, Parliament would then have 28 days to elect a successor (s46(2)b and s46(3)a). If no new First Minister was elected then the Presiding Officer would ask for Parliament to be dissolved under s3(1)a. This process could also be triggered if the First Minister lost a vote of confidence by a simple majority (i.e. more than 50%), as s/he must then resign (Scotland Act 1998 s45(2)). To date the Parliament has never held a confidence vote on a First Minister.

No extraordinary general elections have been held to date. Any extraordinary general elections would be in addition to ordinary general elections, unless held less than six months before the due date of an ordinary general election, in which case they supplant it. The subsequent ordinary general election reverts to the first Thursday in May, a multiple of four years after 1999.^[8]

It was envisaged that the general election would still have taken place as scheduled if Scotland had voted in favour of independence in 2014.^[9]

2011 results

The table below shows the figures for seats won by each party at the 2011 election. In the days after the 2011 election, which resulted in an SNP overall majority, Iain Gray, Annabel Goldie and Tavish Scott resigned as leaders of the Scottish Labour Party, Scottish Conservative Party and Scottish Liberal Democrats respectively.^[10]

Retiring MSPs

Deselected MSPs

Election system, seats, and regions

The total number of Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) elected to the Parliament is 129.

The First Periodical Review of the Scottish Parliament's constituencies and regions by the Boundary Commission for Scotland, was announced on 3 July 2007. The Commission published its provisional proposals for the regional boundaries in 2009.

The Scottish Parliament uses an Additional Members System, designed to produce approximate proportional representation for each region. There are 8 regions, each sub-divided into smaller constituencies. There are a total of 73 constituencies. Each constituency elects one MSP by the plurality (first past the post) system of election. Each region elects 7 additional MSPs using an additional member system. A modified D'Hondt method, using the constituency results, is used to elect these additional MSPs.^[36][37]

The Scottish Parliament constituencies have not been coterminous with Scottish Westminster constituencies since the 2005 general election, when the 72 former Westminster constituencies were replaced with a new set of 59, generally larger, constituencies (see Scottish Parliament (Constituencies) Act 2004). The boundaries used for the Scottish Parliament elections were then revised for the 2011 election. The Boundary Commission also recommended changes to the electoral regions used to elect "list" members of the Scottish Parliament,^[38] which were also implemented in 2011.

Campaign

On 29 March 2016, STV will host the first televised leaders’ debate of the campaign, featuring the leaders of five Scottish parties.^[39]

Opinion Polling

Graphical summary

3-point average trend line of poll results from 1 January 2014 to 4 November 2015, with each line corresponding to a political party.

  SNP

  Labour

  Conservatives

  Greens

  Lib Dems

  UKIP

  Socialists

The chart shows the relative state of the parties from the start of 2014, when regular polling began, to the date the next election is held.

Target seats

Below are listed all the constituencies which required a swing of less than 5% from the 2011 result to change hands.

SNP targets

Labour targets

Conservative targets

Liberal Democrat targets

Footnotes

References

Elections and referendums in Scotland Parliamentary elections Pre-1707 1999 2003 2007 2011 2016 Local elections 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1977 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1995 1999 2003 2007 2012 2017 Referendums 1979 1997 2014 Local referendums Scottish licensing referendums, 1920 Strathclyde (water) 1994 Edinburgh (congestion charge) 2005 See also: Elections in Great Britain (1707–1800) United Kingdom Politics of Scotland