Scotland: SNP on course to win vote, but by how much matters

A majority victory would hand Scottish nationalists the impetus to push harder for a second independence referendum.

Glasgow, Scotland – Talk of Scotland’s parliamentary election is not about whether the governing party will win, but by how much. The pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP) has led the Scottish Parliament since 2007 and appears on course to secure an unprecedented fourth term on May 6, when Scots go to the polls to elect 129 parliamentarians to the 22-year-old devolved institution. “The constitutional issue still seems to be at the heart of Scottish politics,” Simon Pia, a former Scottish Labour Party press adviser, told Al Jazeera, highlighting the polarising political debate that has long pitted supporters of Scottish independence against those who believe in Scotland’s centuries-old place within the United Kingdom’s union of nations.