Greens unveil Highlands and Islands regional election candidates
THE SCOTTISH Greens have announced their candidates for the Highlands and Islands regional section of next year’s Scottish Parliament elections.
The list of candidates is led by current Highlands and Islands MSP Ariane Burgess, with Orkney councillor Kristopher Leask placed second.
Shetland Green councillor Alex Armitage is fifth on the party’s list of regional candidates for the Highlands and Islands.
It is understood that the Greens have not yet made a decision on putting forward candidates to contest local constituencies.
When people vote in the Scottish Parliament elections they have two choices to make.
One is for a candidate in their local constituency – in Shetland this role is currently held by the Lib Dems’ Beatrice Wishart, who is standing down next year – and the other is for a party in their particular region of Scotland.
The regional list uses a different voting system and aims to achieve proportional representation, with eight regions in Scotland.
There are seven Highlands and Islands MSPs at the moment – Burgess, Emma Roddick (SNP), Douglas Ross, Jamie Halcro Johnston and Edward Mountain of the Conservatives in addition to Rhoda Grant from Labour.
In the last election in 2021 the Greens did not secure any MSPs in the constituencies across Scotland but due to the votes the party received it achieved a number of regional MSPs.
There are 56 regional MSPs and 73 constituency MSPs.
Meanwhile only two candidates have been publicly confirmed for the Shetland constituency in the 2026 Scottish Parliament elections.
They are Hannah Mary Goodlad of the SNP and the Liberal Democrats’ Emma Macdonald.
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