The extraordinary SNP leadership contest may go down in history as Alex Salmond’s revenge.
Former First Minister Salmond has been on the warpath since 2018 when news leaked that the Sturgeon Government had investigated him over alleged sexual harassment.
He has tried to bring down Nicola Sturgeon and her allies ever since and he seems to have succeeded.
The House of Sturgeon has fallen and Salmond is standing victorious on the rubble.
On paper, this is a contest involving Humza Yousaf, Kate Forbes and Ash Regan.
The reality is this is Sturgeon versus Salmond – with allies of the two Nationalist heavyweights interfering behind the scenes.
Sturgeon’s resignation last month had many causes but it came amid debilitating internal conflicts on a strategy for independence and gender recognition reform.
Salmond’s rival pro-indy Alba party fuelled divisions on both of the issues that gradually wore Sturgeon down.
The resignation of her husband Peter Murrell as SNP chief executive for misleading the media on membership numbers should also be seen in the context of Salmond.
Regan is taking the credit for helping flush out this scandal but it was her adviser, Kirk Torrance – a Salmond confidante – who was the brains behind the transparency strategy.
It was not always like this.
Salmond and Sturgeon used to be the rock on which SNP hegemony and election wins were built.
He led the SNP to victory in 2007 and she was his talented deputy. But she was also his protege and he her mentor.
He gave her his blessing to take over after the crushing 2014 referendum loss.
But their relationship fell apart after the Daily Record revealed the Government Salmond used to lead had investigated him over the harassment claims.
A police investigation followed and Salmond ended up going on trial for attempted rape and sexual assault.
The Government probe proved to be unlawful and Salmond was acquitted in the High Court – but he was convinced Sturgeon’s allies tried to have him jailed.
He quit the SNP, formed Alba and set about trying to destroy Sturgeon and the small coterie around her he believes tried to bring him down.
Most of his targets over the last four years, such as his obsession with former permanent secretary Lesley Evans, have been proxy attacks on the outgoing first minister.
Sturgeon’s team also insist he used the Holyrood Inquiry into the Government’s botched investigation into him as a way of tormenting her.
His lawyers tellingly said they had concerns about evidence Murrell gave to the inquiry – an early sign Sturgeon’s husband was in his sights.
The leadership contest, already a source of great bitterness, has given him and his allies the opportunity to cause trouble on an unprecedented scale.
When Yousaf – clearly the favoured choice of Sturgeon – faced questions on missing an equal marriage vote in 2014, Salmond corroborated claims the Health Secretary had skipped the meeting.
Salmond said: “I really don’t have a dog in this race.
“My memory is that I was contacted 10 days or so before the vote, when the vote was known, and told that Humza was arranging a ministerial appointment.”
Ian Blackford, the party’s former Westminster leader, spoke for many Sturgeon allies when he said: “I think what you see is Alex Salmond, as a former member of the SNP, trying to stir the pot to some extent, isn’t it?”
With Sturgeon and her husband in the exit lounge, the plan now is to stop Yousaf from becoming SNP leader and first minister.
Key to this objective is sowing doubt about the contest and having the ballots re-issued.
A Forbes win, aided by the second votes of Regan supporters, could lead to Salmond’s re-entry into the party he led for decades over two separate spells.
Sturgeon herself is hardly an innocent abroad in the bitter succession battle.
Her supporters have blatantly supported Yousaf while briefing against Forbes and Regan.
Ministers and backbenchers have also lined up behind the health secretary in a bid to secure her legacy.
Sturgeon, despite her long history with Salmond, clearly despises him with a passion.
Asked last year by presenter Iain Dale whether she would ever speak to Salmond again, she said: “Nope.”
The obvious historical parallel is the bitter civil war that engulfed the Scottish Socialist Party.
Former SSP leader Tommy Sheridan won a famous court case in 2006, but nonetheless accused party colleagues of trying to do him in.
He then took them all down by trashing the SSP and forming a rival left-wing party.
Sheridan and Salmond have much in common.
Journalists love covering the Salmond/Sturgeon melodrama but there are many losers from this degrading spectacle.
Pro-independence supporters want a movement united behind the aim of Scotland leaving the UK – a prospect that seems dead in the water.
Voters want a Government focused on the day job of improving public services and tackling the cost of living crisis. They too are being let down.
Central to this soap opera is a man out of office, but who cannot seem to leave the stage.
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