28 Days Later?

The elections are over, so where do we go from here you ask. There is just the small matter of electing a Presiding Officer (PO), a First Minister (FM) and forming a government.

After a tight election victory for the SNP (47-SNP, 46-Lab, 17-Con, 16-LD, 2-Grn, 1-Ind) all three of these matters become even more interconnected than they might otherwise have been. The original schedule had tomorrow (Wed) as the day that the PO and the FM would be elected. And because of the Scotland Act they’ve got to be elected in that order.

But there appears to be a problem, because of the numbers neither Labour nor the SNP can afford to lose a member to become the PO. There has also been no suggestion of a Lib Dem taking over and talk of Robin Harper being interested in the post has gone due to the Greens dropping to 2 MSPs.

Margo McDonald has speculated that she would be interested but I don’t believe she’s a serious prospect in this role - which leaves the Conservatives. There has been much speculation that Annabel Goldie may be suited to the role. I`m inclined to agree but Annabel is still the Conservative leader and had a relatively good election so I suspect that, as she’s publicly stated, that she’ll decline.

The Conservatives though have stated that they will not be forming part of any government so it would seem likely that the next PO will come from their ranks. Alex Fergusson has declined the position. Another name suggested is Ted Brockelbank, but for my money I believe that John Scott would be the most suited to the role.

But this uncertainty has promoted the move that tomorrow after the MSPs are sworn in that they will agree to postpone the first proper meeting of the parliament until Monday at 3pm. This should leave enough negotiating room to have a new PO in place.

Which brings us to the question of FM and government. We, the SNP, won the election so we have the ‘moral authority’ to take steps to form the government. Alex Salmond made clear that his preference was for a coalition government. After the election there were a few phone calls to Nicol Stephen who refused to point blank to negotiate with the SNP. Nicol wants a precondition to any talks to be that we don`t bring an independence referendum to the table. The SNP have stated that we won`t enter into talks with pre-conditions and we’d rather get round the table with them and take things from there – as we have been doing with the Greens.

The Greens also issued a call to the Lib Dems to talk, which was swiftly rebuffed. The Lib Dems also said that they wouldn`t work with Labour (and the Conservatives have ruled out any coalition). So it looks increasingly likely that there will be an SNP minority administration.

Which brings us to the election of the FM – its up to the FM to form the administration. The Scotland Act states the parliament has 28 days to select a FM (sorry, suggest one to the Queen). The rules on the selection are set in the standing orders of the Scottish Parliament.

The basics of which is that a simple majority of those expressing an preference in a voting round is what is needed. In the first round I suspect we’ll see three candidates – Alex Salmond, Jack McConnell and Nicol Stephen. Annabel has said throughout the campaign that she will not be FM – so I don`t think the Conservatives will put her forward.

The first round would I suspect having parties voting strictly along party lines, except for the Conservatives who may abstain having no candidate of their own.

The second round would be a head to head between Alex and Jack. Providing the Conservatives and the Lib Dems abstain then Alex will become the First Minister and will start forming the SNP Government.

There is another possibility however, what is jokingly called the ’28 Days Later’ scenario by some in the Civil Service. In this scenario the parliament hits a stalemate in selecting a FM within the 28 days period, if this happens then we rerun the election…

Thankfully this appears to be unlikely to happen at this stage and that by all accounts once a PO is selected that Alex Salmond will be elected as First Minister. Time will tell who will become the reluctant Presiding Officer.