GB, voting on 6 May in Scotland, dreaming of Europe

Thursday 29 April 2021 – 15:06

GB, voting on 6 May in Scotland, dreaming of Europe

Sturgeon’s snap favorite but will he have an absolute majority?

Rome, April 29 (askanews) – The Scots will go to the polls next week to elect a regional government. The shadow of Brexit weighs on the vote – most of the shaken ones were to remain – and the dream of independence from London remains on the horizon, which could also mean a possible return to the European Union this time.

The largest parties to compete include the SNP, incumbent Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s Scottish National Party, Scottish Conservatives, Scottish Labor, Scottish Greens and Scottish Liberal Democrats, but there will also be many smaller parties and independent candidates. There are some doubts about the SNP’s victory, but understanding its limits will be decisive. The problem is essentially whether the SNP will be able to win an absolute majority or will also have to form a coalition or minority government. To complicate the picture, former Prime Minister Alec Salmond’s return to politics is, on Alba’s head, a new political formation that, in a good confirmation situation, could complicate the future structure of Scottish politics and little else.

In the latest panelbase poll for the Scott Goes pop website, The Scotsman newspaper noted that the SNP would be the largest party in Holyrood (Scottish Parliament) after next Thursday’s vote, with 61 seats, compared to the SNP in 2016 Two less. And four less than the absolute majority.

In this context, some colleges become decisive, such as Labor in Dumbarton, East Lothian and Edinburgh Southern and Frontier constituencies such as Edinburgh Central, Aberdeenshire West and controlled by the Air Tories. In the event of confirmation in these constituencies, the SNP can rise to 65 seats and gain an absolute majority.

The big question is, will there be a majority in favor of independence? According to another panelbase poll of 1,075 over 16 conducted between 21 and 26 April, even though the SNP does not get an absolute majority, a pro-independence majority is likely.

This is largely due to increased support for Alba, which is running in the regional ballot only and is now expected to win eight seats in the elections.

6% of respondents said they would support Salmond’s party with their list vote and 11% of those who voted SNP in 2019 indicated they would vote for Alba and 13% for Scottish Greens.

As the analysis conducted by the BCC reveals a week after the election, there is no mystery about the end result – only the SNP is talking about forming a government. But there are still some important questions to be answered that can have a huge impact on the future of Scotland.

The most obvious questions are always the same: Will the SNP have an absolute majority? Will it be able to build independence majority with the help of other small parties? Will the Conservatives dominate Labor in the second place battle? And what are the factors that can help answer these questions?

The voting factor may prove to be decisive.

In general, for the elections in Holyrode, the BBC notes, only half of those who have the right to vote actually do so. The average turnout since 1999 has been 53%.

This does not necessarily make things more unpredictable, even though the lowest turnout – 49% in 2003 – led to the creation of an almost unbearable “rainbow parliament” of seven different parties.

And the SNP won the lowest number of polling seats in 2016 – all 41 seats with the lowest turnout picked an SNP MSP, while the party won just three of the top ten seats with the highest turnout. Election – suggesting that the current ruling party need not fear in the event of low turnout.

The question is whether the voters who voted on May 6 will be different from the voting of previous years. Analyzing the demographics, it is clear that older people are traditionally more likely to vote, but are also more likely to be negatively affected by Kovid-19 and therefore potentially nervous to leave their homes.

Meanwhile, a record number of people have signed up for the postal vote, but these are probably quite politically engaged individuals who might have voted personally anyway.

What will be the effect of small parties? A total of 25 parties are participating in the election. Everyone in Scotland will have at least 15 different options on their regional rolls and in some areas the ballot will look like a telephone directory.

Smaller parties have already run for parliament with varying degrees of success, but they could be quite successful in 2021, largely thanks to former Prime Minister Alex Salmond, who took over as leader of the Alba party Re-entered the political fray. .

It is extremely difficult to say whether Alba will promote the pro-independence cause, or if it will distribute votes and cost seats to big-pro-independence parties. The same can be said about George Galloway’s All for Unity group on the UK pro-party side.

The SNP’s plan for this election was essentially to compare Nicola Sturgeon’s leadership with that of Boris Johnson to talk about independence. But the rise of Alba means that Ms. Sturgeon does not have full control of the debate’s independence front and is thus forced to talk about borders, currency, the European Union and a whole range of potentially uncomfortable topics that She would have preferred to postpone the referendum campaign for the future.