Near record number of candidates hoping to win over voters
VOTERS across Scotland will have near record numbers of candidates to vote for at next month’s Holyrood election.
In Glasgow, there are 21 parties to choose from, with 102 standing on the regional list. On the Lothian list there will be 18 parties and 91 candidates.
In the Central Scotland region there are 77 candidates and 14 parties in the race, with 83 candidates and 16 parties in the South Scotland region and 14 parties in Highland – where former Scottish Greens MSP Andy Wightman will battle to become an independent.
As well as the SNP, Labour, Conservatives, Lib Dems and Greens, the regional lists contain a number of smaller parties such as Alex Salmond’s new Alba Party, George Galloway’s All for Unity and Reform UK.
There is also an Abolish the Scottish Parliament Party, the Scottish Family Party and the Scottish Libertarian Party. Despite being just a week into the official election campaign, some candidates have already been forced to issue apologies for their behaviour, including former boxer Alex Arthur, who is hoping to get into Holyrood as a Lothian region MSP for Alba.
He sparked fury after a series of social media comments in which he said he did not want the vaccine and mocked Romanian beggars. On February 26, Mr Arthur said of the vaccine: ‘I just don’t believe I need it.’
In a statement published this week, he apologised for ‘any offence’ caused and said the comments about beggars had been ‘misinterpreted’. Mr Arthur won gold for Scotland at the 1998 Commonwealth Games and was crowned WBO super featherweight world champion in 2008.
Fellow Alba candidate Jim Walker also faced criticism this week when it emerged he had called Nicola Sturgeon a ‘cow’ in response to a TV interview in which she attacked Mr Salmond.
When questioned about the tweet, he said: ‘I’ve removed the tweet, which was an inappropriate response... I’m pretty mortified. I freely apologise to her.’
Meanwhile, it was yesterday announced that a former member of the British Freedom Party will stand against Nicola Sturgeon and Anas Sarwar in Glasgow Southside. Jayda Fransen announced earlier this year she would stand against the ‘SNP commies, Marxists, naughty people’.
She was previously convicted of a number of religiously aggravated crimes, including harassment in both 2016 and 2018 – the latter of which led to her being sentenced to 36 weeks in prison.
Responding to Ms Fransen’s intention to stand, Mr Sarwar said: ‘We’ve had far-Right fascists come to the Southside of Glasgow before. They tried to stand when I was a candidate in 2010 and 2015.
‘Every single time the far-Right has tried to stand for election and divide our communities in the Southside, the people of Glasgow have told them where to go.
‘So I have no fear, I ha ve no worry about it at all. I know the message the people of Glasgow will send them.
‘I have no doubt with this individual, who I have never met... I’m sure both Nicola Sturgeon and I will give her the kind of welcome she deserves.’