Next Scottish Parliament election

← 2016

6 May 2021

All 129 seats to the Scottish Parliament
65 seats needed for a majority

	First party	Second party	Third party

Leader	Nicola Sturgeon	Ruth Davidson	Kezia Dugdale
Party	SNP	Conservative	Labour
Leader since	14 November 2014	4 November 2011	15 August 2015
Leader's seat	Glasgow Southside	Edinburgh Central	Lothian (List)
Last election	63 seats	31 seats	24 seats

	Fourth party	Fifth party

Leader	Patrick Harvie and Maggie Chapman	Willie Rennie
Party	Scottish Green	Liberal Democrats
Leader since		17 May 2011
Leader's seat	Glasgow (List) (Harvie)	North East Fife
Last election	6 seats	5 seats

First Minister before election

Nicola Sturgeon
SNP

Elected First Minister

TBD

Nicola Sturgeon
SNP

TBD

The next Scottish Parliament election is due to be held on Thursday 6 May 2021 to elect 129 members to the Scottish Parliament. It would be the sixth general election since the parliament was established in 1999.

Five parties had MSPs in the fifth parliament: Scottish National Party (SNP) led by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, Scottish Conservatives led by Ruth Davidson, Scottish Labour Party led by Kezia Dugdale, Scottish Greens, led by their co-conveners Patrick Harvie and Maggie Chapman, and the Scottish Liberal Democrats, led by Willie Rennie.

Under the Scotland Act 1998, an ordinary general election to the Scottish Parliament would normally have been held on the first Thursday in May four years after the 2016 election, i.e. in May 2020. This would clash with the proposed date of the next United Kingdom general election. In November 2015, the Scottish Government published a Scottish Elections (Dates) Bill, which proposed to extend the term of the Parliament to five years. That Bill was passed by the Scottish Parliament on 25 February 2016 and received Royal Assent on 30 March 2016, setting the new date for the election as 6 May 2021.

The date of the poll may be varied by up to one month either way by the monarch, on the proposal of the Presiding Officer.

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