In the event, the SNP did not win the overall majority First Minister John Swinney sought in the 2026 Scottish election. However, between them the SNP and the Greens won 73 seats, 57% of all MSPs. It is the largest ever contingent of pro-independence MSPs at Holyrood.

Yet between them the two parties won just 41% of the regional list vote. The avowed aim of the parliament’s mixed-member proportional electoral system is to produce a distribution of seats proportional to each party’s share of the list vote. However, as the table below shows, this is not the first time disproportionality has benefited the party of government and its potential allies. But it is the biggest discrepancy yet – even greater than that which favoured the Labour/Liberal Democrat coalition at the first two Holyrood elections.

Why was the outcome so disproportional? The reason lies primarily in the outcome in the constituencies. The first-past-the-post system used to elect constituency MSPs reflects a party’s standing relative to its competitors rather than simply the share of the vote it has won. Despite winning a........

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