HUMZA Yousaf is now the new SNP leader and will likely become Scotland’s new first minister tomorrow.
One person we now might be seeing more of is his wife Nadia El-Nakla.
She has been in the news a few times alongside Yousaf and is an SNP politician herself, but what is her and their story?
Who is Nadia El-Nakla?
El-Nakla, 39, got married to Yousaf in 2019 and the couple have one daughter together. She also has a daughter from a previous marriage.
El-Nakla lives with Yousaf in Broughty Ferry, a suburb a few miles east of Dundee.
She was born in Scotland but has a Palestinian father. She has relatives in Gaza and in 2021 she told how she was in constant contact with her brother Mohammed, his wife Duas and their three children amid conflict in the region.
What has she done in politics?
In May last year, she became an SNP councillor for the West End of Dundee. She was the first minority ethnic SNP candidate to be elected in the city.
She said after winning a council seat: “I really want to take this time in the next five years to invest in women and get them into politics because in the Broughty Ferry ward I don’t think we’ve ever seen a female councillor in I don’t know how long.”
El-Nakla has also worked for Scottish Government minister Shona Robison. She previously stood for the SNP in North East Scotland in the 2021 Holyrood election but was unsuccessful.
Why else has she been in the news?
El-Nakla and Yousaf were suing Little Scholars Day Nursery in Broughty Ferry in 2021 for £30,000 after an allegation it unfairly discriminated against their then two-year-old daughter Amal.
They launched legal proceedings through lawyer Aamer Anwar in August 2021 before making a complaint to the Care Inspectorate, which was upheld, later that year.
The couple initially made their complaint about the nursery after Amal was refused a place while, they said, applications submitted by friends and family for “white Scottish-sounding names” were accepted.
