He liked Alex Salmond‘s risk. That’s why he liked horse racing – because of horse racing. And that is probably why he became a politician – because of the prospect of winning elections and the risk of defeat. Salmond’s most significant victory came in 2007, when he and his party, the Scottish Nationalists, won the largest number of seats in the regional parliament in Edinburgh for the first time. And although the SNP was far from a clear majority with around a third of the seats, and although it was only enough to form a minority government even in coalition with the Greens, Salmond got hold of the office of First Minister of the regional government . – and from then on to fill it in such a way that one could believe that the independence of Scotland, the main goal of his party’s programme, had already been achieved.
Salmond literally set off political fireworks to inspire the national feeling in the Scots that a majority should succeed in a referendum to secede from Great Britain. On St. Andrew’s Day, Scotland’s national holiday on November 30, in 2009, the head of government not only presented the plans for the independence vote, but also launched a rocket show from the plateau of Edinburgh Castle in the evening turn the whole over. city light blue -white, bathed in the national colors of Scotland.
Salmond became involved with the Scottish nationalists while studying at St Andrews, where he studied economics and medieval history. Apparently his girlfriend at the time, who was from England, encouraged him to take this step. Because of his left-wing socialist views, the party leadership suspended his membership after a while, and he was not reinstated until 1985 – by which time he had long been professionally established as an economist with the Royal Bank of Scotland since then. In 1990 he took the leadership of the party for the first time after a vote, and ten years later he gave up the leadership again after internal disputes. He was followed by John Swinney, who is now again trying to stabilize the SNP as party leader.
Salmond instead ran for the British House of Commons, but was there again in 2004 when a new party leadership was sought after the SNP suffered a landslide victory in the European elections. In 2007 he celebrated his victory by making his party the strongest force in the regional parliament, and in 2011 the Scottish nationalists even won a clear majority in the regional elections. Salmond thought he had achieved his goal for a year: he agreed with British Prime Minister David Cameron on the date and conditions for the referendum on Scottish independence, which took place on 18 September 2014. Victory a it was for him: When asked whether Scotland should be an independent country, over 55 percent of Scots answered “no”.
The following day, Salmond announced his resignation as government and party leader; He was succeeded in both posts by his deputy Nicola Sturgeon. Their close relationship was irreparably damaged after allegations of sexual misconduct were made against Salmond, which were eventually found to be unfounded and resulted in the Scottish government compensating him for breaching its policy on investigating the incidents.
A few weeks ago, Salmond said he didn’t think he would ever speak to Sturgeon again. Before that, he had long been looking for other ways to get back at her and her ex-partner for insults. He founded “Alba”, an independent opposition party that put forward more than 100 candidates for the regional elections, all of which were unsuccessful, and he remained active in all kinds of media formats. He had his own talk show on Russia Today until the beginning of the war in Ukraine. He died on Saturday at the age of 69 after a speech in North Macedonia.