General Information
At stake in this election:
- 129 seats in the Scottish Parliament (Pàrlamaid na h-Alba)
Description of government structure:
- Chief of State: Queen ELIZABETH II
- Head of Government: First Minister Jack McCONNELL
- Assembly: Scotland (part of the United Kingdom) has a unicameral Scottish Parliament (Pàrlamaid na h-Alba) with 129 seats.
Description of electoral system:
- The Queen is the hereditary head of state.
- The First Minister is appointed by the monarch.
- In the Scottish Parliament (Pàrlamaid na h-Alba), 73 members are elected by plurality vote in single-member constituencies to serve 4-year terms and 56 members are elected through a closed-list proportional representation system to serve 4-year terms.***
*** Seats in the proportional tier are allocated using the d'Hondt method.
Main parties in the electoral race:
- Party: Scottish National Party
- Leader: Alex SALMOND
- Seats won in this election: 47
- Seats won in last election: 27
- Party: Scottish Labour Party
- Leader: Jack McCONNELL
- Seats won in this election: 46
- Seats won in last election: 50
- Party: Scottish Liberal Democrats
- Leader: Nicol STEPHEN
- Seats won in this election: 16
- Seats won in last election: 17
- Party: Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
- Leader: Annabel GOLDIE
- Seats won in this election: 17
- Seats won in last election: 18
- Party: Scottish Green Party
- Leader: Shiona BAIRD
- Seats won in this election: 2
- Seats won in last election: 7
Last Parliamentary election:
- The last parliamentary election was held on May 1, 2003.
Population and number of registered voters:
- Population: 5,094,800 (July 2005 est.)
- Registered Voters: 3,877,603 ( 2003 )