SCOTTISH Labour have confirmed the candidates who will run to succeed Anas Sarwar as leader.
MSPs Michael Marra, the party’s finance spokesperson, and Joe Fagan, a former council leader, will go head to head in the contest.
Monica Lennon, who lost her seat at Holyrood in May, but now takes up the list place vacated by Lord Sarwar, did not manage to get on the ballot.
Nominations closed at 10am on Monday April 17, with candidates needing support from at least three MSPs, three MPs and two trade unions before they can make it on to the ballot.
Lennon received the backing of the party’s two biggest union affiliates, Unite and Unison, as well as the Co-operative Party and a number of socialist societies and constituency parties. However, she did not receive the backing of Labour parliamentarians in Westminster and Holyrood.
Scottish Labour said: "At the close of nominations, we can confirm that two candidates have been successful in meeting the threshold required to be eligible for the ballot.
"The two candidates eligible to be put before a ballot for the leadership are Michael Marra and Joe Fagan."
A series of hustings is planned, with voting to get under way on August 28.
Members then have until September 17 to complete their ballots, with the result declared on Saturday September 19.
At a hustings last week Lennon said that the election defeat had left Scottish Labour facing its “worst ever crisis”.
Adding that members face a “stark” choice, she said they could “either continue with the old ways that lost elections and talented MSPs or choose a leader with the vision, courage and empathy to make it electable”.
Marra said the next leader had to “renew” the party and “rediscover its moral purpose”.
He said that the contest must find the candidate best able to “bring the party together” and “galvanise that movement”, warning supporters: “If we don’t change, we’ll be here again in five years. And how’s that going to feel?”
Fagan said that Scottish Labour has to “change more than the faces at the top”, and the party must get “squarely on the side of the working people of this country”.
Adding that Scottish Labour needed to rediscover its “courage, boldness and imagination”, he told supporters: “I am standing to unite our party, to back our movement, to seize this moment and rebuild Scottish Labour as a party for working people of Scotland.”
