A former SNP rising star has accused the party’s hierarchy of “rigging” an internal selection battle to ensure a preferred candidate won a safe seat.
North Lanarkshire councillor Paul Di Mascio believes he would have been a certainty to win the support of local members to stand in the 2021 Airdrie and Shotts by-election.
However, he has claimed his candidacy and others were blocked by former FM Nicola Sturgeon, ex-SNP CEO Peter Murrell and party chair Kirsten Oswald, before Anum Qaisar was parachuted in.
Anum – whose 2015 wedding was attended by Sturgeon, her husband Murrell and Humza Yousaf – went on to take her place in the House of Commons after winning the seat aged just 28.
The privately educated former teacher had been a prominent member of the Labour Party until September 2014.
Di Mascio said: “I believe there is no question that the selection process to stand as a candidate was rigged to make sure Anum got that seat.
“I was a local candidate and councillor who was very well known and liked by the membership in Airdrie and Shotts.
“I don’t want to sound big-headed because I absolutely am not – however, I have absolutely no doubt that I would have been selected in a members’ vote if I had been allowed to run.
“I felt party members and local constituents deserved to have a candidate who lived in the Airdrie and Shotts area.
“Instead I was interviewed by SNP chair and business convener Kirsten Oswald and then told that I had failed the process. There wasn’t much explanation given. There were other local candidates who weren’t even given an interview.
“Branch members then had a candidate who was not from the area imposed on them through a process that had clearly been manipulated to make sure Anum won.”
Anum was selected to stand in the by-election despite months earlier also being put forward for a seat at Holyrood in the Scottish election the same year.
She held the Westminster seat for the SNP despite a significant swing to Labour. The vote came after the sitting MP Neil Gray resigned in order to stand in the overlapping Holyrood constituency.
The SNP polled 10,129 votes and Labour 8372, giving Anum a reduced majority of 1757.
Di Mascio, who recently left the SNP to join newly formed Progressive Change North Lanarkshire, added: “Local members were perturbed and outraged at the time.
“I received messages of support from many councillors, sitting MPs and MSPs as well as local activists and people who had held senior positions within the party who thought it was a disgrace and themselves eluded to the whole process being manipulated or fixed from start to finish.
“The feeling was that the system was being manipulated to favour those selected by the leadership of the party – Nicola Sturgeon, Peter Murrell and their cronies.
“Local MSP Neil Gray, who himself is not local, was hugely supportive of Anum, who had appeared from nowhere and had the support all of a sudden of Neil’s office staff and others who subsequently became employees when she was elected.
“There have been rumours for years about what was going on behind the scenes and nothing would now surprise me.”
Before becoming an MP, Anum was a modern studies teacher at Boroughmuir High School and George Watson’s College in Edinburgh.
The MP has been close to FM Yousaf and worked in his office for a period after defecting from Labour in 2014. Sources have claimed her wealthy family were not happy when Anum did not get to run for the Scottish Parliament in 2016 and made their feelings known.
Despite being selected to stand by the National Executive Committee, she lost out via a members’ vote in Edinburgh Eastern to MSP Ash Regan.
The Electoral Commission has received a letter of complaint asking it to investigate the Airdrie and Shotts by-election.
The SNP said: “As is normal process, Anum Qaisar was selected after a ballot of all SNP members in Airdrie and Shotts.”
The dispute is the latest in a catalogue of scandals engulfing Scotland’s ruling party.
Last week the SNP’s new auditors flagged up issues with its books. Yousaf last night said the SNP has changed the way it records party donations and now keeps documentation of all amounts under £250.
The accounts will note that the original records for some cash and cheques had not been retained for the current and prior financial years. Th e records relate to membership, donations and raffle income.
Meanwhile, Sturgeon, Murrell and former SNP treasurer Colin Beattie have all been arrested and questioned by police in relation to a fraud investigation before being released without charge.
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