First Minister John Swinney said that he “rescued the SNP from a position of enormous peril” after taking on the role in 2024.
Mr Swinney said that the party was “in danger of collapse” when he became First Minister following the resignation of his predecessor Humza Yousaf.
He took up the post months before the general election which saw the SNP suffer heavy losses.
Mr Swinney said that having recently stood down at the end of a long career he had not been planning to stand as First Minister in 2024.
However, he said he would have felt a “real sense of regret” if he had not come forward to “try and repair the situation the SNP faced in 2024”.
The SNP went into the 2024 UK general election election as the largest party at Westminster from Scotland, having won 48 out of 59 seats at the 2019 general election.
However, after the election the SNP lost a total of 39 seats, winning only nine seats, and subsequently became the second largest party in the UK Parliament representing Scottish seats.
Scottish Labour became the largest party representing Scottish constituencies at Westminster.
Mr Swinney told The Herald: “I thought the SNP was in danger of collapse at that stage in 2024.
“I thought the SNP was in such a difficult position in 2024 that I had absolutely no alternative but to come back in and try to restore the fortunes of the party.
“And that’s what I have done. I have literally rescued the SNP from a position of enormous peril.”
The SNP had 58 MSPs after last week’s Scottish Parliament election.
Despite falling seven short of a majority, the party has managed to restore its place as the largest party in Scotland.
Mr Swinney continued: “I have restored its relationship with the public and we now find itself in a leading position that nobody in 2024 would have thought was possible, and that has come about by the focus I’ve had with rebuilding relationships within the party and making sure we’ve got good democratic governance within the party and that, most importantly, we face outwards and not look inwards.”
