AN SNP activist is seeking to challenge Humza Yousaf for leadership of the party, pledging to give ordinary members more power to decide policy.
Chris Hanlon, secretary of the West Fife and Coastal Villages SNP branch, is soliciting nominations online.
Should he reach 100 nominations, it would lead to a second leadership contest for the party in the space of six months.
Hanlon said: “The job of party leader is to implement party policy, all of party policy and nothing but party policy.
"Party policy is decided by conference.
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"If, like me, you are concerned that leadership spends too much time pontificating about what they claim party policy is rather than waiting for members to decide, or telling journalists that the decision hasn’t been made yet and that questions about the specific details of the independence election will have to wait till conference, I’d like to hear from you.”
Hanlon - who in 2020 ousted Alyn Smith from the role of national policy conevener - said Yousaf had “promised to listen” when he was elected leader and that the membership “should make it clear that his position is conditional on living up to that promise”.
He added he had not “made any decisions” as he urged people who “feel, as I do, that feet need to be held to the fire” to give him their support.
Yousaf won the backing of 52% of SNP members earlier this year after Nicola Sturgeon suddenly resigned after eight years as first minister.
He saw off rivals Kate Forbes and Ash Regan when the votes of people who backed Regan, the former community safety minister, were redistributed following a first round where no candidate won the support of more than half the membership.
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