…
Humza Yousaf will take over as leader of the SNP and first minister of Scotland from Nicola Sturgeon. He was seen as the favorite candidate of the SNP establishment by many, including Ms. Sturgeon.
More MSPs and MPs supported the health secretary than any of his competitors. Deputy First Minister John Swinney said Mr. Yousaf would “finish our journey to independence.”
He has more experience than the other two people running for leader. Since 2012, he has worked for the government as justice secretary and transport minister, among other jobs.
After a very tense leadership race, his supporters say he is a good communicator best suited to unite the party and keep the power-sharing deal with the Scottish Greens.
Humza Yousaf, known as the “continuity candidate,” is a close friend of Ms. Sturgeon and is often seen as the person who would try to carry on the work of the outgoing first minister.
He is one of the three candidates who has said he would go to court to stop the UK government from blocking Ms. Sturgeon’s controversial gender recognition reforms. He said the party can only win independence if it promotes “progressive values.”
But he has made it clear that he won’t go to court unless a lawyer tells him he has a chance of winning.
Humza Yousaf has distanced himself from Sturgeon’s plan to use the next election as a de facto referendum. He said that instead, he would try to build a “consistent majority” in favor of independence because it “isn’t good enough” for polls to show that 50% or 51% of people support independence.
But he has tried to reach out to more impatient supporters of independence by saying he might call a special Holyrood election to find out how many people want to leave the UK.
Humza Yousaf also denied that the party leaders were doing everything they could to ensure he won the leadership race. This was in response to claims that the shorter campaign was done to help him win.
He has also said that he is open to hearing concerns about controversial policies like plans for a new national care service and the bottle return scheme.
“Do it like this”
During the competition, Humza Yousaf told BBC Scotland’s Sunday Show that he was “his own man” and would do things his way.
Critics say Mr. Yousaf has “failed upwards” and hasn’t done much in office. Jackie Baillie of the Labour Party called him “the worst health secretary in history” and said he now wants to be “the worst first minister in history.”
But his rival for the SNP leadership, Kate Forbes, was the harshest. She told Mr. Yousaf during a live STV debate, “Trains were never on time when you were in charge of transportation. When you were secretary of justice, the police were so busy that they were about to break. And now that I’m in charge of health care, we have record-high wait times.”
The fights between Mr. Yousaf and Ms. Forbes were a big part of the race. Mr. Yousaf said his opponent’s views on social issues like gay marriage, trans rights, and abortion would make the party “lurch to the right.”
But Humza Yousaf has also asked himself why he didn’t vote in the 2014 final vote on gay marriage. He said it was because he had to attend a very important meeting about a Scot on death row in Pakistan for blasphemy.
Alex Salmond, the first minister at the time, said on Sky News that Mr. Yousaf didn’t vote because he felt religious pressure from a Glasgow mosque. This is something that Mr. Yousef has strongly denied.
Humza Yousaf becomes first Muslim to lead a major UK party
When the 37-year-old man is confirmed as Scotland’s first minister, he will be the first Muslim to lead a major UK party and the first person from an ethnic minority to lead a devolved government.
His father was born in Pakistan, and in the 1960s, he and his family moved to Scotland. His mother was born in Kenya to parents who were from South Asia. Mr. Yousaf has talked much about the racist things people have said to him.
At the beginning of the leadership race, he said someone had threatened him, so he had to call the police. A man, 25, and a woman, 35, were arrested and charged.
Humza Yousaf went to Hutchesons’ Grammar, a private school in Glasgow. He was two years behind Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar when he was there.
After studying politics at Glasgow University, he briefly worked in a call center before becoming Bashir Ahmad’s and then Alex Salmond’s assistant in parliament.
Read Also: At least 25 people killed in Mississipi
Humza Yousaf was chosen to be a listed MSP for the Glasgow area in 2011. After a year, Mr. Salmond made him minister for Europe and international development.
He was the first person from a minority group to win a seat in the Scottish Parliament, which he did in 2016. Then, in 2016, he became the minister of transport. He did this by winning in Glasgow Pollok against a Labour candidate.
