PICTURES: Election night count drama for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East relived
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WITH the dust settling on an eventful election count for the new constituency of Aberdeenshire North and Moray East, here are some reminders in pictures of what was a dramatic evening.
An EXIT poll just after the polls closed at 10pm seemed to hold out little hope of victory for the SNP’s Seamus Logan, giving him a meagre one per cent chance against fellow frontrunner Douglas Ross, the former Moray MP and outgoing Scottish Conservative party leader, who was given a 99 per cent of winning.
Fate and the EXIT poll were to deliver the cruellest of ironies to Mr Ross - in the 2019 election it was predicted he had just a one per cent chance of claiming the Moray seat, which he went on to do.
The P&J Live centre in Aberdeen was the venue for the count, where ballots from a total of five seats across Aberdeen and the north-east were tallied.
Meanwhile, over in the Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey constituency - which contains the western half of the former Moray seat - there was a nail-biting victory for the SNP’s Graham Leadbitter. His haul of 14,961 votes was enough to see off his Tory challenger Kathleen Robertson, who polled 13,960.
Labour comfortably took third sport with 8259 ballots. There was a tussle for fourth, the Liberal Democrats’ Neil Alexander edging out Steve Skerret from Reform UK by 3785 votes to 3490.
Green candidate Draeyk Van Der Horn finished the night with 1676 votes and, bringing up the rear, was Euan Morrice from the Scottish Family Party on 423.
