SNP bosses are facing a backlash from some members over plans to use all-women shortlists for the selection of candidates for the Scottish Parliament’s elections next May.
The measure was given the go-ahead by delegates at the SNP spring conference in March after being rejected for many years. Next year’s election will be the first time it has been used by the party.
It has already been confirmed there will be a women-only list in Edinburgh Central, where sitting MSP Marco Biagi has indicated he will not stand again, and there is likely to be an all-female list in Edinburgh Eastern too, where former justice minister MSP Kenny MacAskill is not seeking re-election. But some members are angry at the move.
“Basically there is a backlash to all-female shortlists,” one SNP activist told The National.
“I don’t believe in any form of discrimination. Whether it’s positive, or not, it’s still discrimination. Selection should be about ability not gender. It’s also not good for women. If a candidate is selected from a female-only list, she may face the accusation she only got there because of positive discrimination rather than on her own merits. It’s not only male members who are complaining about this, it’s women too.”
He added: “People are threatening to leave the party over this as they believe it’s undemocratic.”
Another party member added: “There is a general feeling of unhappiness about this. Several men who would like to stand in Edinburgh Eastern are unhappy that they probably won’t be able to put their name forward and that being excluded simply because they are men isn’t fair.”
SNP hopefuls who would like to seek nomination but can’t in their own constituency because of an all-female list can try to get on to the party’s regional list, or try to get nominated in another constituency.
It is understood the selection contest for SNP candidates in Edinburgh North and Leith, where the veteran Labour MSP and former health minister Malcolm Chisholm is to step down, will be open to men. However, a source explained that outside their own constituency candidates may face a tougher battle in getting elected.
He said: “The problem about standing in a constituency which is not your own is that you’re not so well known. Candidates may have spent years working really hard and getting their faces known. Then they face a disadvantage if they have to go somewhere else where people don’t know them.”
Under the new regulations, the SNP national executive committee can direct that an all-women shortlist should be in place in a constituency which has a retiring SNP MSP.
The rules were brought in to counter an under-representation of women among the SNP’s elected members at Holyrood and to encourage a wider participation of women in politics. Currently just 17 of the party’s 47 MSPs are women.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has put gender equality at the heart of her premiership and one of the first steps she took in government was appointing a gender-balanced Cabinet.
Under her leadership, the number of women joining the SNP has also soared. Before the referendum only 33 per cent of the party’s membership was female. The figure had increased to 44 per cent when the women-only shortlist rules were approved in March.
Speaking last October, ahead of the rule change, the First Minister said she believed “100 per cent” that people should be selected for posts on merit, but that measures should be looked at to address the factors in society which were “holding women back”.
She said then: “If we had a system that was purely based on merit, we’d have gender balance, because women are 52 per cent of the population, and unless you think that women are somehow less capable, then if we had a merit-based system we wouldn’t have these problems of under-representation of women.
“So there’s something else at work that is ... holding women back, acting as barriers to women getting on. I do think we need to look at system-wide approaches to deal with that, so that we can one day get to a position where all of these decisions are entirely based on merit.”
An SNP spokesman said: “SNP conference in March voted to enable the party to use all-female lists to help bring us closer to gender balance in our team of candidates for 2016. The NEC last week took a view on a number of constituencies which met the criteria, and will have to now give consideration to the vacancy in Edinburgh Eastern.”
Names mentioned so far as possible contenders in Edinburgh Central include Councillor Cathy Fullerton, former Lothian MSP Shirley-Anne Somerville and senior charity executive Audrey Birt.
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