President of Scotland (Differently)

President of Scotland
Arms of Scotland
Incumbent Wendy Alexander
Style	His Excellency
Residence	Edinburgh
Term length	Three years
Constituting instrument	Constitution of Scotland
Formation	December 10, 2014
First holder	Alex Ferguson

The President of Scotland is the head of state of the Scottish nation. The President has limited powers and responsibilities and is elected by the people independently of a party to a three-year term with no right to re-election.

History

Pre-independence

Following the referendum in 1997, in which the Scottish electorate gave their consent, the Scottish Parliament and Scottish Executive was established (later the Scottish Government) by the Parliament of the United Kingdom and the Labour government of the prime minister, Tony Blair. The former Parliament of Scotland had been suspended following the Acts of Union 1707, forming the Parliament of Great Britain. The re-establishment of a dedicated legislature and executive for Scotland was known as devolution and initiated a measure of home rule or self-governance in its domestic affairs, such as health, education and justice. The devolution movement came to a head in the 1970s, and resulted in a Royal Commission on the Constitution, leading to the Scotland Act 1978. This would have established an autonomous Scottish Executive with a leader termed 'First Secretary', a post for which Strathclyde political leader Geoff Shaw was widely expected to be chosen, though Shaw's premature death and a failure in a follow-up referendum, led to the Act not being implemented, and a twenty-year wait for the Scotland Act 1998.

Scottish devolution resulted in administrative and legislative changes to the way Scotland was governed, and resulted in the establishment of a post of first minister to be head of the devolved Scottish Government. The term "first minister" is analogous to the use of premier to denote the heads of government in sub-national entities of Commonwealth nations, such as the provinces of Canada, the states of Australia, and the provinces of South Africa. Prior to devolution the comparable functions of the first minister were exercised by the secretary of state for Scotland, whose Scottish Office was a department of the British Government set up in 1885. The secretary of state is a member of the British Cabinet appointed by the prime minister to have responsibility for the domestic affairs of Scotland.

Post-independence

In January 2012, the UK government offered to legislate to provide the Scottish Parliament with the powers to hold a referendum, providing it was "fair, legal and decisive". This would set "terms of reference for the referendum", such as its question, elector eligibility and which body would organise the vote. As the UK government worked on legal details, including the timing of the vote, Salmond announced an intention to hold the referendum in the autumn of 2014. Negotiations continued between the two governments until October 2012, when the Edinburgh Agreement was reached. The Scottish Independence Referendum (Franchise) Act 2013 was passed by the Scottish Parliament on 27 June 2013 and received Royal Assent on 7 August 2013. On 15 November 2013, the Scottish government published Scotland's Future, a 670-page white paper laying out the case for independence and the means through which Scotland might become an independent country. On September 18, 2014 the Scots went to vote and what followed was a landslide in favour of Scottish Independence with 67% voting yes on the matter and the process of devolution was complete on December 1st, 2014. Labour Leader Alex Ferguson was elected the nation's first President in an election held 4 days after independence. He was followed by Former M.P. and Journalist Alex Salmond who himself was succeeded by Mayor of Irvine Jack McConnell. McConnell will be succeeded by Wendy Alexander a Former M.S.P. pre-independence.

List of Presidents

Name	Term	Election	County
Alex Ferguson (1941)	December 10, 2014 - December 10, 2017	2014	Lanark
Alex Salmond (1954)	December 10, 2017 - December 10, 2020	2017	West Lothian
Jack McConnell (1960)	December 10, 2020 - December 10, 2023	2020	Ayrshire|}
Wendy Alexander (1963)	December 10, 2023 - Incumbent	2023	Lanark