On March 28, at the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, Humza Yousaf, the newly elected leader of the Scottish National Party, signed the nomination papers to become the country’s first minister along with his daughter Amal. (AFP)
Humza Yousaf will become the youngest and the first Muslim first minister in western Europe after Nicola Sturgeon resigns, the Scottish Parliament confirmed on Tuesday.
Yousaf (37), who only just prevailed in the party’s leadership election on Monday, has vowed to revive Scotland’s moribund independence movement, according to AFP.
The leader of Pakistani descent, who will be sworn in formally on Wednesday,
a majority of parliamentarians in the early afternoon vote on Tuesday, securing his nomination to become the nation’s new first minister.
The top five things to know about Humza Yousaf are as follows:
- According to The Independent, Yousaf is the son of immigrants who landed in Glasgow, Scotland, in the 1960s. While his mother was born into a South Asian household in Kenya, his father is from Pakistan.
- He attended Glasgow’s Hutchesons’ Grammar School and graduated from the University of Glasgow with a degree in politics.
- Yousaf mentioned his late grandfather in February, revealing that he arrived in Scotland from a small Pakistani town in 1962 knowing hardly any English. I doubt that his grandfather could have imagined that his grandson would someday run for first minister of Scotland.
- Declaring that his election to the position of first minister shows that “anyone, whatever of race, can aim for the highest office in our country and not be judged by the colour of their skin,” he said that Scotland should be happy that a grandson of an immigrant can run for the position.
- Yousaf was the first Muslim appointed to the Scottish government in 2012. In 2016, he was appointed transport minister, then in 2017 he was fined £300 (more than ₹30,000 at current market value) for operating a friend’s vehicle without insurance.
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