18 May 2007
Scotland's first minority nationalist government was set to be endorsed on May 17 after the historic election of Scottish National Party leader Alex Salmond as first minister.
Salmond appointed his deputy Nicola Sturgeon to cover health and John Swinney to the finance brief after defeating his predecessor, Labour's Jack McConnell, on May 16.
He held to his pledge of cutting the ministerial posts that existed under the Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition led by McConnell from 11 to six .
Fiona Hyslop was named secretary of education and lifelong learning, Richard Lochhead takes rural affairs and the Cabinet was completed by Kenny MacAskill in the justice brief.
The SNP intends to go ahead with its pledge to introduce a white paper on an independence referendum. But there will be no possibility of the proposals receiving the backing of the Parliament in which the SNP has only one more seat than the Labour Party.
It has struck a 'co-operation' agreement with the two Green MSPs in the 129-member Parliament but it failed to form a coalition deal with the LibDems because they oppose a referendum on independence.
Salmond became the first nationalist to win power in the party's 73-year history when he defeated McConnell by 49 votes to 46. The Greens backed Salmond while the Tories and LibDems abstained.
The Parliament this week appointed a Conservative MSP, Alex Fergusson, to the politically neutral post of presiding officer.
Meanwhile, elections expert Ron Gould has been appointed by the Electoral Commission to investigate the May 3 votes fiasco, which resulted in around 100,000 ballot papers being rejected.
PFmay2007
