Holyrood Election 2021 - how it's looking so far

SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon is "extremely confident'' the party is heading back into power at Holyrood - although she conceded winning an overall majority of MSPs there is a "very, very long shot''.

As results come in from Thursday's Scottish Parliament elections, the First Minister has downplayed the prospect of winning a majority.

However, she insisted it was an "extraordinary achievement'' for her party to win an historic fourth term in power.

Ms Sturgeon has held her Glasgow Southside seat, seeing off Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar.

She won 19,735 votes, compared to Mr Sarwar's 10,279, a majority of 9,456.

The Scottish Conservatives held Eastwood with former party leader Jackson Carlaw re-elected.

Former SNP Westminster leader Angus Robertson has taken the seat formerly held by Ruth Davidson.

Mr Robertson reversed a Conservative majority of 810 held by the former Tory leader, winning 16,276 votes.

The Tory candidate, Scott Douglas, won 11,544 votes - giving the SNP a majority of 4,732.

Scottish Labour have held Edinburgh Southern, their first seat of the Scottish Parliament election so far.

Daniel Johnson won 20,760 votes to SNP candidate Catriona MacDonald's 16,738.

The Scottish Conservatives took 5,258 votes and the Scottish Liberal Democrats 2,189.

Turnout was 71%.

Earlier on the Liberal Democrats held the Orkney constituency - the first to declare in the Scottish Parliament election.

Liam McArthur will return to Holyrood to represent the safe seat after claiming 7,238 votes.

The SNP was in second place with 3,369 votes, followed by the Scottish Conservatives on 699 and Scottish Labour on 290.

A total of 11,621 votes were cast, 65.4% of the electorate.

Minutes later, the SNP held Aberdeen Donside, with councillor Jackie Dunbar taking the seat previously filled by Mark McDonald - who resigned from the party after allegations of inappropriate behaviour towards women.

Ms Dunbar won 18,514 votes, defeating the Scottish Conservative candidate on 9,488, with Labour taking 5,505 votes and the Lib Dems 2,162.

Turnout was also up by more than seven percentage points in the Aberdeen constituency, at 57.8%.

The SNP went on to hold the Western Isles seat, with sitting MSP Alasdair Allan returned for Nicola Sturgeon's party, polling a total of 7,454 votes.

They also held the Clydebank and Milngavie seat, with newcomer Marie McNair elected to replace Gil Paterson, who stepped down from Holyrood. Ms McNair was successful after securing 17,787 votes.

After retaining his Perthshire North seat, Deputy First Minister John Swinney said: It is an enormous pleasure to see the prospects of the return of an SNP government for a fourth historic term, given the scale of the vote that my party is experiencing the length and breadth of the country.

"I pledge myself to do all that I can in the next parliamentary term to ensure the interests of the people of Scotland are safeguarded and supported and taken forward to ensure that the people of Scotland have a choice on their future as they should have.''

At the Glasgow count, Scotland's Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf said members of an anti-vaccine party made a "beeline'' for him due to his skin colour.

Derek Jackson, standing for the Liberal Party in Glasgow Southside, arrived at the count with supporters wearing black suits and yellow stars with "unvax'' written on them, and claimed to be satirising "fascist SNP hate laws''.

After they approached Mr Yousaf, members of other political parties joined the SNP to confront them.

Speaking to reporters after the incident, Mr Yousaf said: What I'm always struck by is voices of good always outweigh the voices of hatred.''

SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon has retained her Glasgow Southside constituency in the Scottish Parliament election.

Votes in 46 of the 73 constituency seats began being counted at about 9am, with the first results expected in the afternoon.

It is anticipated all 46 should be declared by Friday evening.

From about 9am on Saturday, the remaining 27 constituency seats will be counted, after which the regional seats will be allocated.

All results are expected to be declared by Saturday evening.

The P&J Live/Teca arena in Aberdeen was among the first to start counting at 9am on Friday, and Alba Party leader Alex Salmond is at the centre to watch votes being tallied.

Elsewhere, Scottish Green Party co-leader Patrick Harvie was the first party leader to arrive at the Glasgow count at the Emirates Arena.

This year's election, while conducted under the constraints of coronavirus rules, is considered to be one of the most important since the Scottish Parliament opened in 1999.

With the SNP set for another five years in government, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon will no doubt ramp up the pressure on Westminster to grant the powers for another vote on Scottish independence.

Her opponents in the Tory, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties have stressed the importance of focusing on Scotland's recovery from coronavirus instead.

But the SNP leader and her party have said no referendum will be held until after the immediate health crisis is over, and they insist powers gained through independence would actually improve the recovery in Scotland.

Ms Sturgeon has said another pro-independence majority in the Scottish Parliament, including the Greens and Alba Party seats, should be enough to let Scots vote again on whether they want to leave the UK.

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