Scottish National Party leadership election, 2004

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3 September 2004

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Turnout

79.23%


Candidate	Alex Salmond	Roseanna Cunningham	Mike Russell
Votes	4,952	953	631
Percentage	75.8%	14.6%	9.7%

National Convener before election

John Swinney

Elected National Convener

Alex Salmond

John Swinney

Alex Salmond

There was a Scottish National Party leadership election in 2004 following the resignation of John Swinney as National Convener of the Scottish National Party (SNP). The election saw the return of Alex Salmond to the party fore, and a deal between Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon saw Sturgeon drop out of the leadership race and instead run for the Depute leadership on a joint campaign with Salmond. Both Salmond and Sturgeon won their respective positions in the first round.

Elected in 2000, Swinney had presided over a contested leadership, marred by electoral failure, with the party losing both seats and votes in the 2003 parliamentary and local elections. Following a disappointing European election result, which saw the party dropping to less than 20% of the vote, senior figures within the SNP began privately briefing against Swinney. Gil Paterson, a former MSP for Central Scotland was the first to call for Swinney's departure, with Michael Russell, a former potential campaign manager for Swinney calling for a change in approach from the SNP. Members of the SNP shadow cabinet began privately discussing removing Swinney from the leadership, and Alex Salmond advised Swinney to resign in exchange for senior party figures not calling openly for his resignation. Swinney resigned on 22 June 2004.

The fight over who was to succeed Swinney saw the re-emergence of former leader Alex Salmond, who entered the race despite having repeatedly denied any ambitions to run. Most famously, Salmond quipped in June 2004 that "If nominated I'll decline. If drafted I'll defer. And if elected I'll resign." Salmond launched his campaign less than a month later, on 15 July.

After Salmond announced his campaign for the leadership, Nicola Sturgeon dropped her bid, and ran instead for the Depute Leadership. The two ran on a joint campaign. Kenny MacAskill dropped his bid for Depute, and gave his support to Sturgeon.

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