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Scottish Nationals Win The Flawed Scottish Election

The final tally of seats have been declared in the Scottish Parliamentary Elections 2007, and the final result is that the SNP has a majority of one seat, but even with a coalition deal with the Liberal Democrats they won;t have a clear majority. Thinking about this, I’m quite pleased. Labour is out, and consensus politics will ensure that nothing incredibly stupid can be put into law. It also means that the SNP will get their wish, and the chance to show that they can lead Scotland effectivly. If that’s the case, then they can propose the next step to Scotland at the next election.

A New Dawn and a Saltire over Arthur’s Sear

Of course, that next election is assuming that there isn’t a voiding of yesterday’s election. There have been huge problems with the running of the election. They’e details in the national papers (The Guardian might be a good place to start), but in short, postal ballots not being issued or available in time, the increased numbers of rejected papers (in some cases being more than the majority of the winning constituency candidates), and the failures of the electronic counting machines to deliver a timely result. These all need urgent investigations.

Alex Salmond is the leader of the largest party, and there’s a certain moral assumption that he’ll be First Minister. He’s announced that if that becomes the case, he’ll launch “an independent judicial enquiry” into what happened. The Electoral Commission has already started its own investigation, but the picture is rapidly becoming clear to all. I am immensly worried that what well get back from these almost internal enquiries is that because all parties were affected equally, nobody was significantly disadvantaged.

Is that the case though? The problem of course is that the smaller parties have been squeezed out on the regional list (for example, the Solidarity party failed to get a seat via the Glasgow Regional list by around 0.5%), and it seems a large number of the spoiled papers were due to two votes being cast on the region lists.It’s my understanding the Green party (who only campaigned on the regional lists) are considering placing a Freedom of Inormation request on all the ballot papers that affect them in this election. That’s a mighty big ask, to actually look into the ballot box… That anyone would consider this is a sad indictment on the state of affairs of this election.

This story will develop over the next few days and weeks. How we as a country conduct ourselves is going to be vitally important. History will be the judge of May 2007, and I urge the politicians to act in the best interests of the electorate, the country, democracy and for Scotland.

(My previous thoughts on the elections)

May 4, 2007; Politics;

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