THE Scottish Liberal Democrats will announce their new leader tomorrow with Tavish Scott, the Shetland MSP, the favourite to win the vote.
About 4,000 Liberal Democrat members were entitled to take part in the contest and it is understood that between 2,500 and 3,000 will have done so when the votes are counted tomorrow morning.
Mr Scott, the former transport minister, has led from t
he start but he has faced a tough challenge from Mike Rumbles, the independently minded backbencher, and Ross Finnie, the former rural development minister.
Voters have been asked to rank the candidates in order of preference for the election, which will be decided by the single transferable vote method.
If no candidate has a majority after the first round of voting then the candidate with the least votes – expected to be Mr Finnie – would drop out and his second preferences would be allocated to the others.
Liberal Democrat insiders believe that Mr Rumbles could pick up many of Mr Finnie's second preferences and they believe he could make the final outcome much closer than Mr Scott's team expect.
Mr Rumbles said: "If I do win it will certainly signal a new direction, a new era, for the Liberal Democrats."
Mr Scott said he had been concentrating on economic uncertainties and the problems facing ordinary people.
He said: "That's where I believe we have to be as a party in the future."
The full article contains 245 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
