24 February 2023 , 13:34
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Three candidates will slug it out to succeed Nicola Sturgeon as First Minister of Scotland, the SNP has confirmed.
Kate Forbes, Humza Yousaf and Ash Regan have all met the threshold for their leadership bids to go forward, setting up a bitter battle for the top job.
Frontrunner Ms Forbes has been plagued by controversy after she said she wouldn't have voted for gay marriage and that she thought it was wrong to have children out of wedlock.
But despite losing the support of key figures within the party, voters seem to have stuck with her, with 28% saying she is her preferred choice in the first poll of party members.
That gives her a narrow lead over Mr Yousaf and Ms Regan, who polled 20% and 7% respectively.
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A first poll of SNP members puts Kate Forbes narrowly ahead of her rivalsAlmost a third (31%) of those questioned said they do not yet know who to back according to a poll by communications agency the Big Partnership.
Nominations closed at noon today, with candidates required to get at least 100 nominations from at least 20 local party branches to advance.
An SNP spokesman said: "With the 12pm deadline now past, we can confirm that all three declared candidates for the leadership of the SNP - Kate Forbes, Ash Regan and Humza Yousaf - have passed the threshold of nominations by at least 100 SNP members drawn from at least 20 SNP branches."
Members will now be asked to vote using the single transferable vote (STV) system, with a winner announced on March 27.
Health Secretary Humza Yousaf is in the running to take over from Ms Sturgeon (Daily Record)Amid widespread controversy about her campaign, Ms Forbes yesterday that she had been "burdened" by the hurt her comments had caused.
It come after Ms Forbes, who is a member of the socially-conservative Free Church of Scotland, said in a TV interview that having children out of marriage "would be wrong according to my faith".
She also said she wouldn't have voted for same-sex marriage had been in the Scottish Parliament in 2014, but said she had no intention of rolling back on existing rights.
Ms Regan hit out at the current leadership of the SNP, saying Peter Murrell's ultimate control over the contest to replace his wife Ms Sturgeon is a "conflict of interest", and adding that the party has "lost our way" in recent years.
"I think everyone, the kids in the playground can see that there have been some issues in the SNP of late," she said.
"I think I'm the only candidate on the slate that's credible on some of the top issues that have been a problem for the SNP recently, that can draw a line under this so that we can all move forward together because we need to do that for the betterment of the country."
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The SNP, she said, has always been a "broad church", and the Edinburgh Eastern MSP pledged to "heal the divisions that have emerged in the past few years".
"Everyone is going to make up and move on," she said.
In the early days of his campaign, Scottish Health Secretary Mr Yousaf has proven to be the popular choice among elected members, with senior MSPs such as Shirley-Anne Somerville, Jenny Gilruth, Maree Todd and Neil Gray - who ruled out his own bid for the top job - pledging their support.