The Scottish National Party (SNP) John Swinney veteran was chosen as the new party leader and is preparing to succeed Humza Yousaf as Prime Minister of Scotland. His candidacy was the only one put in place after Yousaf’s resignation. “I am deeply honored to have been elected leader of the SNP. I will give everything I have to serve my party and my country,” he wrote about X Swinney, who entered the party as a teenager in 1979.
I am deeply honoured to have been electted as leader of @Thesnp. I will give all that i have to serve my party and my country.
– John Swinney (@johnswinney) May 6, 2024
Yousaf, who had been the first Muslim to lead a democratic nation in Western Europe in March 2023, resigned last week after his decision to end a coalition with the Green Party he twisted against him, unleashing a match to choose his substitute. Former Finance Minister Kate Forbes, who had just lost a leadership match with Yousaf when Nicola Sturgeon resigned as a leader, should have challenged Swinney for the Premiership, but last Thursday he got out of the race. Forbes said she and Swinney shared a “common goal”.
The 60 year old new leader of the SNP is a close collaborator of Sturgeon, resigned last year and whose image has since been stained by an investigation into the finance of the SNP. During the mandate of the latter, he was deputy prime minister for almost ten years from 2014 to 2023, a record of longevity in that position. Even more than Humza Yousaf, John Swinney embodies continuity within an SNP that is losing ground in the polls and is threatened in his strongholds by the ascent of the Labor party a few months after the British general elections.
