2014 Scottish National Party leadership election
leadership election in the Scottish National Party (SNP)
The 2014 Scottish National Party leadership election was held to choose the leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP) and First Minister of Scotland, following the resignation of Alex Salmond as first minister and leader. Nicola Sturgeon emerged as the only candidate and was elected unopposed as leader of the SNP.
In the previous election, held ten years prior in 2004, Salmond was elected, on a joint ticket with Sturgeon as depute, to succeed John Swinney after he resigned following poor SNP electoral performances. Salmond led the party through the 2007 Scottish Parliament election, with the SNP emerging as the largest party and forming a minority government, with the support of the Scottish Greens. The SNP won an overwhelming majority in the 2011 election. Salmond's new majority administration pushed for its manifesto commitment of holding a referendum on Scottish independence. In the 2014 referendum, a majority of Scots voted in favour of remaining part of the United Kingdom. The defeat of the Yes Scotland campaign, resulted in Salmond's resignation. He resigned at party's annual conference in Perth in November 2014.
Sturgeon was the first, and only one, to announce their candidacy for leadership of the SNP. Many prominent members of the SNP were speculated to run, however, they declined and instead endorsed Sturgeon for leader. On 15 October 2014, she was confirmed as the next leader of the SNP, becoming the de facto leader-in-waiting.
“2014 Scottish National Party leadership election” enters the record as leadership election in the Scottish National Party (SNP). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Scottish, National and Party can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “2014 Scottish National Party leadership election” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.