Nicola Sturgeon vows to work with opponents as she's re-elected First Minister
Nicola Sturgeon has told her opponents that she will seek ``progressive'' alliances to prop up her left-of-centre minority government as she was officially reappointed as Scotland's First Minister.
The elevation of the right-of-centre Conservatives to Scotland's second-biggest party in Holyrood makes the choice of the kind of country that we want to be sharper than it has been before'', she said as she accepted her renewed appointment at Holyrood.
Ms Sturgeon stressed the SNP stands for free prescriptions, free education and Scottish independence, policies the Conservatives opposed in their manifesto.
She also said her party will stand up for human rights and trade union rights, alluding to the UK Conservative's bid to scrap the Human Rights Act and introduce a Trade Union Bill to regulate union activity.
Ms Sturgeon said her belief in Scottish independence is enduring'' and pointed out there remains a pro-independence majority in Holyrood, with six Green MSPs augmenting the SNP's reduced tally of 63.
Ms Sturgeon won the vote for nomination as First Minister with these 63 votes, from a total of 127.
A further five votes were cast by Liberal Democrat MSPs for their leader Willie Rennie, who also put himself forward for nomination, while there were 59 abstentions from Conservative, Labour and Green MSPs.
Ms Sturgeon will now be formally appointed by the Queen after her nomination by MSPs.
She became Scotland's first female first minister in 2014, succeeding Alex Salmond, who stood down following the No vote in the Scottish independence referendum.
Ms Sturgeon said: There is quite simply no greater privilege than to be elected to serve as the First Minister of our country.I pledge that for each and every day that I hold this office that I will strive to fulfil the duties placed on me to the very best of my ability, and a promise to use all of the powers that this office places in my hands to make this country an even better place to live.''
She said the election of the Conservatives as the main opposition makes the choice of the kind of country that we want to be sharper than it has been before''.
We represent different political parties for a reason,'' she said.
Each of us wants what is best for Scotland but we have different ideas, sometimes very different ideas, about how to achieve it.
We must not seek to mask these differences - politics at its best will always be a creative battle of ideas - but just as importantly we must not allow our differences to obscure the areas of agreement that do exist between us.
I hope that this session of parliament will see us expend as much effort finding common ground as we do on debating our differences"
That won't always - perhaps it will rarely - lead to unanimity, but we must be prepared to reach out across party boundaries to build alliances across the chamber and across the country as a whole for the common good.''