On Saturday, it was made public in London that Scottish National Party Westminster leader Nicola Sturgeon has endorsed Humza Yousaf for the position of First Minister of Scotland.
SNP heavy hitter Stephen Flynn has added his support for Muslim politician and current Scottish Health Minister Yousaf.
Yousaf has claimed he has been the target of racist and Islamophobic harassment ever since he announced his candidacy for the top position in the Scottish parliament.
Yousaf participated in a hustings event on Saturday at Strathclyde University alongside fellow candidates Kate Forbes and Ash Regan; voting by SNP members will begin on Monday.
On March 27 we’ll find out who won the election.
“I think, for all of us, we need a big bit of hope at the moment,” Flynn told the BBC Good Morning Scotland radio program on Saturday. ‘I think that Humza can provide that hope,’ he said. ‘We have had a difficult few years with Brexit, with Liz Truss crashing the economy in October, with the cost of living crisis.
Yousaf has received support from other high-ranking members of the SNP regime, most notably SNP Westminster deputy-leader Mhairi Black, despite criticism from fellow leadership rivals, especially Forbes.
Yousaf recently revealed he called Police Scotland to report alleged racist and Islamophobic abuse he received at the start of his campaign, prompting him to discuss his apprehensions about running for the SNP leadership with his loved ones.
It was “one of the long conversations, the hard conversations, that I had with the family who know about the racial and Islamophobic abuse that I get,” he explained. As the old saying goes, “in the end you don’t really worry about yourself too much — you worry about your kids.”
