Overview
- Kenny Gibson won the Presiding Officer election after three rounds Thursday, taking 74 votes to Clare Haughey’s 54.
- Liam McArthur and Stuart McMillan were eliminated in earlier rounds with 34 votes and six votes.
- Gibson said he will make the chamber “less dull” and pledged imaginative but firm chairing.
- The Presiding Officer runs debates, including the weekly First Minister’s Questions, so decisions on time limits, interventions, and discipline could change how scrutiny works.
- MSPs took oaths to the Crown before the vote, with John Swinney sworn first in the first session since Queen Elizabeth II’s death, following a rare hustings where candidates set out plans for livelier but tighter proceedings.