I got it wrong

In a recent post (here), I suggested that following next year's elections for the Scottish Parliament there might be a prolonged period of negotiations among the various parties with a view to forming a coalition. The Holyrood Chronicles legal team has pointed out that matters are not that simple.

By virtue of section 46 of the Scotland Act 1998, following a (Scottish) general election, the Parliament has only 28 days to agree a nomination for the post of First Minister. If the Parliament fails to priduce an agreed nomination within the 28 days, then under section 3 of the Act the Presiding Officer has no option but to set a date for an extraordinary general election. As I understand it, he has no discretion in the matter.

Now, it may well be the case that two or three of the various parties competing to form a coalition will complete the necessary negotiations, enabling a nomination for First Minister to be agreed within the 28 days. In which case, feel free to ignore this post.

But just suppose they cannot agree. After all, Labour has been moving away from the LibDems on such issues as local government finance and nuclear power. Meanwhile the LibDems are less than lukewarm about the SNP's plans for an independence referendum. There will inevitably be disputes about the number of Ministers each party would get. And some of the combinations may require support from other parties in order to secure a majority for the proposed nomination. And 28 days is not a long time.

So at the end of May/beginning of June, the Presiding Officer may be forced to set a date for an extraordinary general election. It takes two to three months to prepare for an election (selecting candidates, printing ballot papers, campaigning, etc) and in any case it would be impractical to hold an election in July or August. We are therefore looking at late September at the earliest, with October a better bet. (Following the October election, the same 28 day procedure would then kick in again.)

Meanwhile, who would be looking after the shop at the Executive? Well, under section 45(4) of the Act, the Presiding Officer is able to designate a person to exercise the functions of the First Minister. I assume that the Presiding Officer would feel obliged to designate the leader of the largest party (although he is not under a statutory requirement to do so). But the Executive would certainly be operating on a care and maintenance basis.

So, the question you gotta ask yourself is this: do you feel lucky? Do you think that Messrs McConnell, Salmond and Stephen will get their act together in the 28 days following the May elections? Or are we doomed to re-live groundhog day in the autumn?