LONDON: John Swinney, a seasoned politician who is expected to lead Scotland in the future, will need to bring his split separatist party back together and revitalize its waning independence campaign.
The 60-year-old is an ally of disgraced former first minister Nicola Sturgeon, to whom he faithfully served as deputy for a record nine years. He is a member of the Scottish National Party’s (SNP) old guard.
After 39-year-old Humza Yousaf’s volatile leadership, Swinney is seen as a cool head who can stabilize Scotland’s ruling party and mend the party’s damaged ties with the Greens, its previous power-sharing partners.
However, some claim that Swinney, the party’s previous leader, is a symbol of more of the same and has suffered because he stood up for former leader Sturgeon, who was detained in connection with a continuing financial issue.
Distancing himself from the now-discredited Sturgeon leadership will be difficult for him, according to politics professor James Mitchell of Edinburgh University.
But Swinney is a party animal who is devoted to the point of breaking. For this reason, he is highly regarded within the SNP. Swinney, who was born in Edinburgh in April 1964, joined the SNP at the age of 15, rose up the ranks fast, and in the middle of the 1980s, he was appointed national secretary. He was first elected to the UK parliament in 1997, serving as a representative for the Tayside constituency in central Scotland.
After more than 300 years, Scotland’s regional parliament was reestablished in Edinburgh, and two years later, he was elected to Holyrood, with Labour leading the way. After Alex Salmond left the SNP in September 2000, Swinney took over as leader for the first time.
