Following the resignation of Nicola Sturgeon Scottish politics have been thrown into an upheaval not seen since the Scottish National party (SNP) took control of the Scottish Parliament in 2007. Whatever, the assessment of Nicola Sturgeon’s policies there seems to be a general consensus, even from her political opponents, that she was a formidable and very competent figure. Her departure left a major vacuum in the leadership of the SNP and the office of First Minister for Scotland. The SNP has had two very effective politicians running the party over the last 30 years in the figures of both Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond. So Sturgeon’s successor has big political boots to fill.

Today was the completion of a 6 week leadership race to find a successor to Nicola Sturgeon as SNP leader.
Voting for the SNP leadership ended on Monday 27 March at 12.00 noon. The result was announced at 14.09 hrs today.

The SNP leadership race has brought forth 3 figures to be the new party leader.
• Humza Yousaf
• Kate Forbes,
• Ash Regan



It was announced this afternoon that Humza Yousaf has been elected the SNP leader following the leadership vote by SNP members. It was a tight result with Yousaf winning with just 52.1 of the vote while his main rival Kate Forbes obtained 47.9% after the votes of the third candidate Ash Regan were re-allocated.

Humza Yousaf



Humza Yousaf was the most politically experienced leadership candidate having been a member of the Scottish Parliament since 2011. He has held the office in the Scottish government of Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care from 2021. He was also Cabinet Secretary for Justice (2018–2021)

He previously held the junior ministerial position of Minister for Transport and the Islands (2016-2018) and Minister for Europe and International Development (2012-2016) Yousaf he has been the Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for Glasgow Pollok since 2016, having previously represented Glasgow region from 2011 to 2016. Humza Yousaf declared his candidacy for SNP leadership and First Minister of Scotland on18 February 2023.

Yousaf was the first South Asian and first Muslim cabinet minister in the Scottish Government. He now has the distinction of being the first Asian and first Muslim SNP leader and likely First Minister following the vote in the Scottish Parliament this Tuesday. At 37 he will be Scotland's youngest First Minister and only the 6th person to hold that office.

Yousaf was seen as the ‘establishment’’ or ‘’continuity’’ candidate’’ and is pledged to continue the centre-left, socially inclusive agenda that defined the Sturgeon era. This includes continuing the Sturgeon policy of seeking to legally challenge the UK government stance which prevented the implementation of the Gender Recognition Reform bill.
Yousaf garnered the support of the majority of SNP Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) and Members of the UK Parliament (MPs).

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Date of birth: 7th April 1985
Place of birth: Rutherglen Maternity Hospital, near Glasgow
Time of birth: 11.20pm/23.20 BST
Data source: verified by birth certificate by Mark Cullen

Yousaf like Forbes is a Sun in Aries with their birthdays only separated by a day. Yousaf also has his Mercury and Venus in Aries. However, Yousaf is a double Scorpio with his ASC and Moon in the sign. The Moon is conjunct his ASC. With Mars the ruler of both Yousaf's luminaries, ASC, Venus and Mercury its clearly a pivotal planet in his chart. Mars is is angular in Yousaf’s chart in the 7th house in detriment in Taurus. His SN is on his ASC degree while Mars is conjunct his North Node.

Generally, I would suggest the recent ingress of Saturn into Pisces and Mars into Cancer has resonated well with Yousaf's Scorpio focus.

Transits

Tr Jupiter conj Sun
Tr Uranus conj Mars/DESC
Tr Neptune trine Saturn
Tr Neptune trine Moon
Tr Saturn sextile Neptune
Tr Saturn trine Pluto
Tr Jupiter trine Uranus
Tr Mars (ASC ruler) trine Pluto
Tr Mercury (MC ruler) trine Uranus
TR Mercury(MC ruler) Conj Sun
Tr Moon opposing Uranus
Tr North Node opposing Yousaf’s Pluto

Secondary Progressions (within 1 degree)

SP Moon conj Mercury (MC ruler)
SP Moon conj Venus
SP Moon sextile Jupiter
SP Mercury (MC ruler) Trine Neptune
SP Mercury opp Pluto
SP ASC conj Uranus
SP ASC trine Sun
SP ASC Square MC

Solar Arcs (within 1 degree)

SA Mercury (MC ruler) conj Mars (ASC ruler)
SA Jupiter Sq Uranus
SA Jupiter sextile NN/trine SN
SA Saturn conj Neptune
SA Pluto trine Mercury (MC ruler)
SA Pluto trine Venus

In his annual SR chart (2022) Yousaf had Jupiter trine his Moon.
He has been in a Mars-Saturn firdaria but will enter a Mars-Jupiter firdaria after his birthday in April.


Kate Forbes


Date of birth: 6th April 1990
Place of birth: Queen Mother’s Hospital Glasgow (wrongly stated as Dingwall in Wikipedia)
Time of birth: 08.07pm/20.07 BST
Data source: verified by birth certificate by Mark Cullen

Forbes has been a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for the Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch constituency since 2016. Forbes has served as the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy since 2020. On 20 February 2023, Forbes declared her candidacy for Leader of the SNP and First Minister of Scotland.

Kate Forbes is resident in the Scottish Highlands Forbes and is a fluent gaelic speaker. Forbes gave birth to a daughter last August and was still on maternity leave at the time of Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation speech in February. She only formally returned to the Scottish Parliament last week. She has therefore not had the ideal circumstances to launch her leadership bid.

Forbes leadership bid drew significant attention due to her membership in the Free Church of Scotland, an evangelical Calvinist denomination with socially conservative positions, and her religious views on sexual ethics, which includes moral opposition to sex before marriage, same-sex marriage, and most abortions. Following Forbes' comment that she did not support same-sex marriage, SNP MSPs who had previously supported her candidacy, withdrew their support Forbes responded to the controversy by stating that "in a free society you can do what you want" and that she would not push for her personal moral positions to be legislated into law during her premiership

Forbes has been widely seen as socially and economically conservative, in contrast with the generally socially liberal policies of the SNP under Sturgeon. She has been highly critical of the outgoing first minister’s record, challenging her model of progressive taxation and an urgent transition away from oil and gas exploration. Both Forbes and the third candidate, Ash Regan, advocated dropping Sturgeon’s commitment to fight Westminster’s veto on the Holyrood gender recognition reform bill in the courts, and have stated their opposition to self-identification for trans people.

Forbes indicated a more pro-business stance and focused on the need for wealth generation. She has emphasized the SNP needs to reach out to people who are not currently core supporters for independence to win a future referendum.

Kate Forbes


Forbes has a dynamic chart with all the angles cardinal. Her Sun in Aries is angular and falls on the DESC degree. Although Libra rising with Venus in Pisces Forbes has shown a direct , very assertive approach in the leadership debates. Her Aries Sun is very evident (she likes to wear red!) but her strong opinionated stance may also reflect her fixed earthy Mercury in Taurus. Forbes has Saturn on IC reflecting her conservative evangelical Christian upbringing. Forbes own religious views and socially conservative values have featured in the leadership campaign with her 9th &12 house ruler (Mercury) in the 7th house (Placidus) or 8th house by WS.

Transits
Tr Jupiter is conjunct her Sun(separating) and on her DESC
Tr Mercury Conj her Desc degree (12th WS ruler)
Tr Chiron on her Desc degree
Tr Uranus opposing her Pluto
Tr Uranus squaring her Mars
Tr Mars conj Jupiter
Tr Moon square Neptune
Tr Moon trine Mars
Tr Sun Square Uranus
Tr Venus trine Neptune

Forbes is entering a 10th house profectional year on 6th of April 2023
Her Solar Return chart for 2023 has Leo rising (her 10th WS and intercepted 10th house in Placidus.

The New Moon on 6th of April 2023 is conj her ASC degree
In terms of tight solar arcs (1 degree or less) Forbes has SA Sun square her Mars, Venus square Jupiter and her SA Moon square Chiron.
Forbes SP Moon is square her Mars and conjunct her Pluto
MC on Scottish Astrological degree of 25-26 Cancer (This degree has occurred in several SNP leaders charts and indeed in Scottish history) For example this was the degree of Alex Salmond's Jupiter-Uranus conj in the first house and the Sun degree of Nicola Sturgeon. It was also the MC degree of a former SNP leader Gordon Wilson.

Although Forbes narrowly lost I personally, think Forbes may well still be a future leader of the SNP if Humza Yousaf stumbles and SNP support continues to fall. She has a strong connection to the Scottish national chart (1005 AD) which I will discuss in another post.

Ash Regan

Date of birth: 8th of March 1974
Place of birth: Lockhart Hospital, Lanark, Scotland.
Time of birth: 04.27am
Data source: verified by birth certificate by Mark Cullen

Ashten Regan is a Scottish politician who served as Minister for Community Safety from 2018 to 2022. A member of the Scottish National Party (SNP), she has been the Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for Edinburgh Eastern since 2016. On 18 February 2023, Regan announced her candidacy for Leader of the SNP and First Minister of Scotland.
Regan resigned as a Scottish government cabinet Minister in October 2022 in protest against the Gender Recognition Reform Bill, the first SNP minister to resign to vote against government policy since the party entered office in 2007.

Regan currently sits as a backbencher. Following the announcement of Sturgeon's intention to resign the leadership of the SNP and as First Minister of Scotland, Regan announced her candidacy in the SNP leadership contest, Regan declared her candidacy in the 2023 SNP leadership election, following the resignation of Nicola Sturgeon. Since the beginning of the contest Regan was seen as the outsider candidate with the lowest polling figures amongst both SNP members and the Scottish public.




Humza Yousaf faces a number of challenges in his new role.

Issues include poor National Health Service delivery , educational attainment results and trying to heal the party after a very divisive leadership campaign. There needs to be a decision on whether the Scottish government intends to continue Sturgeon's policy to legally challenges the UK government on its decision to prevent the implementation of the Gender Recognition Bill. All that and the existential issue for the SNP of obtaining another referendum and gaining enough public support to win such a vote.

Yousaf also have a lot of internal party issues to resolve.

The closeness of the leadership result demonstrates that a sizable proportion of the SNP membership are unhappy with the recent direction of political travel. There is clearly support for a more conservative version of nationalism which the leadership of Sturgeon tended to sideline.

This was reflected in the recent dramatic drop in SNP membership. During the course of the election, both the party's chief executive, Peter Murrell (also Sturgeon's husband), and MSP group media chief, Murray Foote, resigned from their positions on 18 and 17 March, respectively, over the media having been misled about the party's membership numbers.

It was revealed the SNP total number of eligible ballots had dropped to 72,186. It had around 104,000 members in December 2021. Membership has fallen by 42 per cent since its peak of 125,691 in 2019. Membership plummeted by more than 30,000 between December 2021 and February 15 this year. One possible explanation for this decline is that the gender recognition legislation was unpopular with a lot of former SNP members.

There is also an ongoing financial controversy hanging over the party regarding the former party's chief executive Peter Murrell (the husband of Nicola Sturgeon) who is facing questions from party members over the alleged disappearance of £600,000 in donations to the party. Police in Scotland are currently investigating an allegation of fraud with regards to the missing £600,000. The Scotsman newspaper reported in June 2021 that Police Scotland had been asked to investigate Murrell regarding a donation to SNP from lottery winners Colin and Christine Weir, which they subsequently asked to be returned to them.

Murrell has also faced questions from the Scottish Labour and Conservative parties over a £107,620 interest-free loan made to the SNP on 20 June 2021, that was not declared to the Electoral Commission for more than a year after the July 2021 deadline. The SNP stated that it did not declare the loan as it did not think the matter was reportable. The loan was to assist with cashflow problems at the party.

But perhaps the biggest challenge of all is convincing Scottish voters to vote for a party under Yousaf's leadership. Throughout the campaign polling of the general public has consistently shown Kate Forbes had more support with Scots voters.

https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics ... np-voters/

I will post later on the SNP and what the future may hold for the Scottish independence movement.

mark

would you happen to have a birth time for this lady Annabel Goldie as well??
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annabel_Goldie

also... marjorie orr has a post up on this which is related and some might enjoy seeing as well..

https://star4cast.com/humza-yousaf-firs ... e-it-work/

James_M wrote

would you happen to have a birth time for this lady Annabel Goldie as well??
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annabel_Goldie

Yes. But I am in the process of becoming an editor on Astrodatabank as I have a large number of natal and mundane charts I have researched I want lodged and properly credited for as the data source. Once that is sorted I will do a post on the General Forum notifying people of the new charts available on Astrodatabank.

James_M wrote

also... marjorie orr has a post up on this which is related and some might enjoy seeing as well..

https://star4cast.com/humza-yousaf-firs ... e-it-work/

She is always worth a read. Marjorie is a Scot herself and no fan of the SNP or the idea of independence. Still, I think her astrological thoughts on Humza Yousaf are spot on. I think there is a real opportunity for the Labour party to regain political ground in Scotland.

The next Scottish Parliament election is 3 years away but I will put up a post discussing longer term trends. I think a power shift in 2026 is on the cards astrologically. Before that there will be a General Election in the UK next year. The Labour party are already eyeing up the possibility of a revival in Scotland regaining them some Westminster seats.

Humza Yousaf was voted in as First Minister of Scotland at the Scottish Parliament on Tuesday March 28th, 2023
Time: 15.01.41 BST Location: Edinburgh, Scotland

Data Source: Anna-Cristal de Lyon

Humza Yousaf was formally sworn in as First Minister assuming the seal of office on Wednesday March 29th, 2023. Time: 10.05am BST, Edinburgh, Scotland.

Data source: BBC website: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-scotland-65098644

Below is the chart for the swearing in of Humza Yousaf as First Minister of Scotland.

Hem!
I am noting a Paran Mars/Saturn. Later this year MA/SA=NN
The midpoint Moon/Saturn= NN
The midpoints in the nodal axis where Eclipses will take place this year.

Moon and Mars Out of Sect

If you want to separate, this is a perfect combination.

Ouranos wrote:

If you want to separate, this is a perfect combination.

Could you elaborate what exactly you mean? Are you discussing Scotland separating from the United Kingdom or the SNP itself splitting up? Or something else entirely?

Thanks

Mark

Could you elaborate what exactly you mean? Are you discussing Scotland separating from the United Kingdom or the SNP itself splitting up? Or something else entirely?

I think it describes the agenda of this PM.
Mars/Saturn by itself is an 'act of separation' and both planets Angular describes the forefront.
The Nodes in this midpoint along with the Eclipses this year involves relationships.
As a reminder, Witte describes the Nodes as
"Union. Connections. Relationships... Limit, boundary or border relations."
Literally, separating (Mars/Saturn) from border relationships (Nodes).

Moon/Mars Out of Sect in the 1st also in the picture, we can expect low blows, clashes in the population with a fierce sense (in Cancer) of Don't step on my backyard.
I am not saying that Scotland will separate, I am more an outsider in this debate but it will fuel the news in the medias. A stellium in Aries in the 11th House, he has a lot of allies at the gate but not the banks (Venus/Uranus in Taurus in the 12th).

Good work Mark.

It's good that we have good people as Astrodatabank editors.
ADB is perhaps my number one online resource. Truly a goldmine of information that is mindblowing in it's completeness of data both with historical figures and more modern celebrities.
I recently contributed to it by emailing with boxing fighter champion Klara Svensson, geting her birthdata, when seeing her on a tv show saying being astro nerd.https://www.astro.com/astro-databank/Svensson,_Klara
She was quite happy to be represented on ADB and getting some comments on her natal chart as well.

It's great to have more worldleaders chart for us interesting in Mundane astrology.

Humza Yousaf - (Tropical).

Noting that he entered a Mercury term in the primary direction in 2022.
Mercury is favourably placed as ruler of his Virgo MC in the fortunate 5th house closely conjunct benefic Venus, and sextile to Jupiter, thus accidentally dignified in that way.

His continuous Profection is in capricorn at 19' Capricorn squaring his exalted Sun in 5th house (leadership).
This seems to tally with primary directed ascendent in the Mercury term which have his exalted sun casting a trine into that term. So leadership is in the agenda now - but with friction.

He seems to have a tropical chart with Mars as the Almuten of the chart giving a desire to conquer and fight. Although he seems to be of the more developed Martian blend though?

Seems to be a challenge for him in about two years when his progressed Sun on *Algol is opposing saturn. With transiting Uranus there too ?