A HOLYROOD candidate who learned Mandarin at her Chinese primary school says Scotland needs a multi-lingual push to encourage new voters.

International citizens will be able to vote in the Scottish Parliament for the first time next month after the extension of the franchise.

A 2019 Holyrood act gave 55,000 international citizens living here the right to cast their ballots and reaffirmed the voting rights of EU and Commonwealth citizens.

Catriona MacDonald, who is standing for the SNP in multi-cultural Edinburgh Southern, has issued voter registration videos in three languages to encourage everyone to register to vote in time.

The clips in Mandarin, French and Spanish have been viewed more than 25,000 times.

Now MacDonald is calling on all Scots politicians to join a multi-lingual registration drive to ensure noone misses out on their right to vote.

The window for registration closes on Monday April 19.

MacDonald, who learned Mandarin in primary school while her family was living near Shanghai, also included a Cantonese translation with her video.

She said: “We all want Scotland to be an open and welcoming country. Our MSPs should speak up for everyone. People from all over the world have made Scotland their home.”

The SNP hopeful studied French and says she picked up Spanish through a decade of work in tourism and hospitality.

She said: “I hope other candidates will join me in reaching out to speakers of all the different languages in our country. Everyone living in Scotland now has the right to vote, wherever they were born. This is a great moment for our democracy and how we campaign should reflect this change.”

Edinburgh alone has tens of thousands of residents born outwith the UK.

According to the 2011 census, Poles are the largest group there at 11,700, followed by Indian (4,900) and Irish (4,700) residents.

The city is also home to 5700 people born in China (5,700), 3700 born in America USA and 3500 hailing from Germany.

There are also thousands of people from Pakistan, Australia, Spain, South Africa and Canada.

According to National Records of Scotland (NRS), more than 4.2 million people were registered to vote in Scottish elections as of December after another 41,600 signed up in a year.

Around 15,000 of these were from the EU and elsewhere overseas, taking this cohort up to 157,400 people.

Sandy Taylor, head of electoral statistics at NRS, said: “These latest statistics show a continuation of the overall upward trend that we have seen over the last ten years.

“This trend is broadly consistent with the increase in the size of the population eligible to vote, which rose by around 5% over this period.”

The National:

Ashley Graczyk, independent councillor for Edinburgh's Sighthill/Gorgie ward, is already running a bi-lingual campaign in her bid for a seat on the Lothians list. 

The pro-independence candidate hopes this will help her “knock out a pro-union” hopeful. She told The National: “My Polish surname, Graczyk, came from my grandfather who originated from Warshaw.

“Since the whole Brexit and settled status shambles from the UK Government, I have become even more conscious of my Polish roots and the urgent need to facilitate deeper political, cultural, economic and community links between Scotland and the EU, including Poland, and to recognise the positive contribution of EU citizens, including Poles, who choose to live, work, and study in Scotland.

“This is also why I decided to do multilingual campaigning in English and Polish.

“I’m determined to do everything I can to help support EU citizens, including Poles, to feel as welcomed and settled as possible in Scotland.”