This article appears as part of the Unspun: Scottish Politics newsletter.
On Thursday night, the great and the good of Scottish politics will gather at Edinburgh’s Prestonfield House for the Scottish Politician of the Year Awards 2024 in association with ScottishPower.
John Swinney, Anas Sarwar and Kate Forbes are all up for the main prize.
The Herald's Political Correspondent Kathleen Nutt profiles the First Minister and weighs up his chances.
When John Swinney threw his hat into the ring to become SNP leader and First Minister following the sudden resignation of Humza Yousaf this April, he was, perhaps, rather unkindly described as "yesterday's man" by his political opponents - both outside and inside his party.
Internal critics were concerned over his long association with Nicola Sturgeon, serving as her deputy First Minister from 2014 until she stood down in Spring 2023.
They believed the SNP needed a fresh start from the Sturgeon years and the controversies left in her wake including the long running Operation Branchform.
They argued a leader who broke from the continuity of Sturgeon and Yousaf was needed with their eyes on Kate Forbes, the leadership candidate defeated by Yousaf in the 2023 contest.
She could certainly not be described as "yesterday's woman" or "the continuity candidate", Swinney's detractors claimed.
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In the end, Forbes opted not to stand with Swinney winning the SNP top job uncontested - after a long conversation with little known grassroots activist Graeme McCormick who was keen to stand against him.
Since May when Swinney became SNP leader and Scotland's seventh First Minister he's now morphed from "yesterday's man" to "comeback kid".
His appointment after just over a year of a quiet life on the SNP backbenches to head of the minority government took his party, Holyrood and Scotland by surprise.
When he stood down as DFM in Spring last year, most people - including undoubtedly Swinney himself - thought his move to the SNP backbench was the first step in his exit from his career in frontline politics which began in 1997 when he was elected aged 33 as MP for North Tayside.
When the SNP won the 2007 election, Mr Swinney became finance secretary, a role he held until 2014 when he was promoted to DFM when Sturgeon became FM.
His long career in government has not always been plain sailing.
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As education secretary in 2020, he presided over an exam results crisis that led to the Scottish Government reversing a decision to downgrade 124,000 results for 76,000 pupils.
Mr Swinney apologised and survived a vote of no confidence in August 2020, with the help of the Greens.
Controversy struck again a year later when Holyrood demanded legal advice on the Scottish Government’s unsuccessful bid to contest Mr Salmond’s judicial review against its flawed harassment probe with the episode leading to Mr Swinney facing and surviving a second motion of no confidence.
His ability to see off two motions of no confidence has contributed to a third moniker, perhaps the most apt, "the great political survivor".
But with his party's Westminster chief Stephen Flynn now on manoeuvres and eyeing a seat in Holyrood and a future tilt at the leadership himself, and with Labour eyeing its chances of a Holyrood victory in 2026, it remains to be see just how long Mr Swinney's survival at the top of his party and of government will last.
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