At the 2011 Scottish Parliamentary election, the SNP won a landslide victory and became the first party to form a majority government in the Scottish Parliament since its resumption in 1999.

The SNP first won a parliamentary seat at the Motherwell by-election in 1945, but Dr Robert McIntyre MP lost the seat at the general election three months later.

In May 2011 the SNP won an overall majority in the Scottish Parliament with 69 seats.

However, the party's MPs, mostly representing seats won from the Scottish Conservatives, were less keen to have the SNP viewed as a centre-left alternative to Labour, for fear of losing their seats back to the Conservatives.

The principal party that campaigns for a dissolution of the Union is the Scottish National Party ( SNP ), which won an outright majority in the 2011 election.

The seat was won at 2011 Scottish Parliament elections by Bill Walker for the SNP.

Govan was a Labour seat ( although Sillars ' wife Margo MacDonald had won it for the SNP in a by-election previously, in 1973 ), but Sillars won a dramatic victory.

Swinney won the contest but the media raised some doubt about his ability to lead the party following poor SNP performances in the 2001 UK General Election and the 2003 Scottish Parliamentary Election.

This played a part in the SNP victory, with every area that was physically visited being won in the election.

The gradualist viewpoint within the Scottish National Party ( SNP ) is the idea that Scottish independence can be won by the accumulation by the Scottish Parliament of powers that the UK Parliament currently has over a protracted period of time.

In 1973 SNP won a by-election with Margo MacDonald as their candidate.

The SNP won another by-election victory in 1988, this time with Jim Sillars as candidate.

The Act also provides for the creation of a ' Scottish Executive ' though one of the early actions of the SNP administration that won power in the 2007 elections was to rebrand the Scottish Executive, as the group of Ministers and their civil servants had been known, as the Scottish Government.

She became active in campaigning for Scottish independence through her membership of the Glasgow University Scottish Nationalist Association, and came to prominence in 1967 when she won the watershed Hamilton by-election as the Scottish National Party ( SNP ) candidate.

Margo MacDonald is married to former politician and columnist Jim Sillars, who won the 1988 Glasgow Govan by-election for the SNP.

A committed and vocal supporter of Scottish independence, Margo MacDonald won the Glasgow Govan by-election, 1973, as a Scottish National Party ( SNP ) candidate ; Govan had until then been a Labour stronghold.

As he was not charged with any crime the incident did not affect his position within the SNP and he won re-election at the 2003 election.

This was the first time the SNP had ever won a parliamentary seat in Edinburgh.

Five seats were won by the SNP, one by the Conservatives and one by the Liberal Democrats.

The Kirkcaldy seat was won at the 2011 Scottish Parliament elections by David Torrance for the Scottish National Party ( SNP ).

Ian Stewart Hudghton ( born 19 September 1951 ) is a Scottish politician, and has been a Scottish National Party Member of the European Parliament for Scotland since 1998, when he won his seat in a rare European Parliamentary by-election, after the death of sitting SNP MEP Allan Macartney.

The reforms of Srđan Milić worked well for SNP, as on 2009 Montenegrin parliamentary election it won 16 seats in Parliament of Montenegro, becoming once again the biggest sole opposition party.

In the light of the reduction in the number of Scottish MPs at Westminster, Wishart's former constituency was abolished in a radical boundary revision, and at the 2005 election he won the new constituency of Perth and North Perthshire for the SNP with a majority of 1, 521 over the Conservatives.

Although not reaching its 1970s peak in Westminster elections, the SNP had more success in the Scottish Parliamentary elections with their system of mixed member proportional representation.

In the 2007 Scottish Parliamentary election, the SNP became the largest political party in the Scottish Parliament for the first time, governing as a minority administration, with party leader Alex Salmond as First Minister of Scotland.

In the 2007 Scottish Parliamentary election the SNP emerged as the largest party with 47 seats, narrowly ousting the Scottish Labour Party with 46 seats and Alex Salmond became Scottish First Minister.

In 2011, Aileen Campbell ( SNP ) defeated Karen Gillon ( Labour ) in the Scottish Parliamentary elections, to become the newly elected MSP for Clydesdale.

He regularly tables Parliamentary Questions scrutinising the Scottish Government ’ s conduct, and supposedly exposed several " irregularities ", including the entertaining of wealthy SNP backers at Bute House at the expense of the taxpayer, and the preferential treatment given to Stagecoach, whose co-founder Brian Souter gave £ 500, 000 to the SNP, in the Forth hovercraft project.

Angus Struan Carolus Robertson ( Scottish Gaelic: Aonghas Sruthan Teàrlach Mac Raibeart, born 28 September 1969 ) is the Scottish National Party ( SNP ) Member of Parliament ( MP ) for Moray and is the SNP's Parliamentary Group Leader and spokesperson for foreign affairs and defence.

He stood unsuccessfully as an SNP candidate for the House of Commons in the Glasgow Anniesland constituency in the 1997 General Election before standing in the Glasgow Maryhill constituency in both the 1999 and 2003 Scottish Parliamentary elections.

Crawford was appointed to the junior ministerial position of Minister for Parliamentary Business following the election of the SNP minority government following the 2007 general election.

Hyslop stood for election to the Scottish Parliament in the 1999 Parliamentary Election as third on the SNP's list for the Lothians Region, and was elected as an SNP additional member.

He was placed second by the party on the South of Scotland list for the 1999 Scottish Parliament elections ( as well as standing for the Cunninghame South Constituency which he also fought in 2003 ) and after his election was appointed SNP Business Manager in the new Parliament which resulted in him becoming a founding member of the Parliamentary Bureau.

In 1979, the SNP Parliamentary Group voted against the Labour Government in a Vote of No Confidence, causing the dissolution of the government and subsequent election.

Anstruther is in the North East Fife UK Parliament constituency ( MP is currently Sir Menzies Campbell of the Scottish Liberal Democrats ), Fife North East Scottish Parliament constituency ( MSP is currently Rod Campbell of the SNP ) as well as the Mid-Scotland and Fife Scottish Parliamentary region and the Scotland European Parliament constituency.

Meanwhile it was a disappointing night for the SNP, they failed to gain any seats and lost a seat to the Conservatives by just 79 votes.

This was clearly demonstrated when-although some argue it was influenced by general public dillusionment with Labour-the Scottish National Party ( SNP ) became the largest party in the Scottish Parliament by one seat.

She failed to retain the seat in the following general election of February 1974, but became Deputy Leader of the SNP in 1974, a post she held until 1979.

With the downturn in SNP electoral fortunes at the 1979 Election she lost her seat in the House of Commons.

The SNP comfortably retained her vacant seat at the by-election which took place on 27 April 2006.

In 1969 he replaced Arthur Donaldson as SNP National Convenor, and it was during Wolfe's period as leader that the party had its greatest electoral success to the Westminster parliament, winning 30 % of the vote in Scotland and 11 of the 71 Scottish seats in the October 1974 General Election, though Wolfe failed to win a seat of his own.

Under the re-drawn constituency boundaries, Stevenson was elected as the SNP member for the new seat of Banffshire and Buchan Coast, It contains approximately 85 % of the electorate of Banff and Buchan and the remainder comes from the previous Moray seat's communities of Cullen, Findochty, Portknockie, Buckie, and from a part of the previous Gordon constituency comprising Rothiemay, Knock, Deskford, Grange.

At the General Election of that year his seat was gained by the Labour Party from the SNP and was consequently held until the 2005 general election when it was regained by the SNP's Angus Brendan MacNeil.

At the 2003 parliament election he lost his seat to Shona Robison, the SNP candidate.

He was SNP candidate for the Strathclyde East seat at the 1994 election to the European Parliament, as well as a candidate for the SNP in the Greenock and Inverclyde seat at the 1999 election to the Scottish Parliament.

She sought to become SNP candidate for Moray in the 27 April 2006 Scottish Parliament by-election to succeed her late sister-in-law, Margaret Ewing, but was defeated by North East Scotland MSP Richard Lochhead who went on to win the seat in the by-election.

She was later selected to contest the Falkirk East seat in the 2007 election on behalf of the SNP as a replacement for the previously selected candidate, the late Douglas Henderson.

Henderson lost his seat to Conservative Albert McQuarrie in the 1979 general election by less than 600 votes, and only two MPs from the SNP remained in the new Parliament.

Future SNP leader Alex Salmond would represent this constituency from 1987, and it is has since become a somewhat safe SNP seat with four-figure majorities over the Conservative and Unionist Party.