Humza Yousaf is set to become Scotland’s youngest first minister and the first person from a minority ethnic background to hold the post after he was elected SNP leader.
After a sometimes fiery and divisive leadership contest, SNP members chose Yousaf, 37, as their party’s new leader, succeeding Nicola Sturgeon.
The current Scottish Health Secretary is expected to be declared Scotland’s sixth first minister after a vote in the Scottish Parliament on Tuesday.
Sturgeon, who was Scotland’s longest-serving first minister, announced last month she was stepping down after more than eight years in the job.
Yousaf succeeds her after defeating the current Scottish Finance Secretary Kate Forbes and former community safety minister Ash Regan in what was the SNP’s first leadership contest for almost 20 years.
The result was announced at the BT Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh, after the ballot of SNP members closed at noon, with a turnout of 70%.
For first preferences in the single transferrable vote system, Yousaf took 24,336 (48%), Forbes took 20,559 (40%) and Regan took 5,599 (11%) of the vote.
When second preferences were distributed in the second stage, Yousaf took 26,032 (52%) and Forbes took 23,890 (48%).
After studying politics at Glasgow University, Yousaf began working as an office manager for the SNP’s Bashir Ahmad, the first MSP from an Asian and Muslim background.
Following Ahmad’s death in 2009, Yousaf went on to work for other MSPs including Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon.
After being elected in 2011 as a Glasgow region MSP, he took his oath to the Queen in English and in Urdu. His father, who is from Pakistan, and his mother, from Kenya, moved to the UK in the 1960s.
Yousaf’s first ministerial appointment came under Salmond’s leadership in September 2012, when he became minister for external affairs and international development.
He stayed on in a junior ministerial role when Sturgeon became First Minister, though he was then promoted to the transport portfolio and later justice.
Perhaps his greatest challenge has come as Health Secretary, with Yousaf taking over the post from Jeane Freeman in 2021 as she stood down from Holyrood.
Viewed as the continuity candidate, Yousaf had greater levels of public support from SNP parliamentarians at both Holyrood and Westminster than the other candidates, with high-profile backers including outgoing Deputy First Minister John Swinney and new SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn.
Yousaf was first elected in 2011 as a regional MSP for Glasgow and was appointed a junior minister the following year, becoming Justice Secretary in 2018.
He said: “It is hard for me to find the words to describe just how honoured I am to be entrusted by our membership of the SNP to be the party’s next leader and to be on the cusp of being our country’s next first minister.”
Yousaf also paid tribute to Forbes and Regan, adding: “It’s felt we’ve seen each other more than our respective families, you both have put in an incredible shift and I know that collectively we will work hard as part of team SNP.”
Dr Liz Cameron, chief executive of the Scottish Chambers of Commerce, congratulated Yousaf on his successful campaign.
“We look forward to working closely with him to restore business confidence and investment, enabling the Scottish economy to drive forward.
“As we outlined to all the leadership candidates in our open letter last week, there are serious challenges in every sector across the economy.
“The cost of doing business, labour shortages, lagging infrastructure, are all drags on growth and investment - so we urge Humza Yousaf to take a pro-business approach with a new cabinet, to help build a build a globally competitive economy and to truly back Scottish business.”
The Federation of Small Business’ Scotland policy chair Andrew McRae commented: “Scotland is home to more than 350,000 small businesses, and we look forward to working with Humza Yousaf and his team to get small businesses doing what they do best: generating revenues, creating jobs, delivering services and trading us back to growth.”
David Lonsdale, director of the Scottish Retail Consortium, said: “The new First Minister takes office at a critical juncture for the economy after three years of fallout from the pandemic and the costs crunch affecting households and firms.
“We look forward to working positively and constructively with the new ministerial team to ensure the economy is the priority of priorities - central to this should be a plan to bolster the recovery and lift private sector growth, one which eases the regulatory burden while building on recent achievements including the government’s retail strategy and retention of the uniform business rate.”
Marc Crothall, chief executive of the Scottish Tourism Alliance, stated: “We look forward to having progressive and productive dialogue over the coming weeks to ensure that Scotland’s tourism sector is acknowledged and recognised as one of our country’s most significant export earners.
“Mr Yousaf has said that building a prosperous and fairer Scotland is dependent on building a strong working relationship with business; we very much hope that he fully commits to working with Scotland’s tourism sector to implement positive solutions as a counter to the existing and proposed policies which are negatively impacting our sector.”
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