Re-elected! Maggie Chapman - Scottish Green Party MSP for the North East region

A member of Maggie Chapman’s campaign team reflects on a successful campaign for a Holyrood seat.

Scotland’s Parliament will see the return of Maggie Chapman as MSP for the North East region. In spite of Maggie’s hard work over the last 5 years and Green progress across Scotland, re-election was not a forgone conclusion. 

The North East Region is vast, taking in Dundee and Angus in the south and Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire and a small part of Moray in the north. The region is, to a large degree, dominated by Aberdeen - Europe’s oil capital. But other characteristics feature. 

These include the Buchan cost, rural Aberdeenshire and the Mearns, the small towns of Angus, and the housing schemes and inner-city areas of Dundee and Aberdeen. The Scottish Greens with Maggie as lead candidate won votes in all these areas. But it was not an easy campaign. 

One ostensibly innocuous online photograph illustrates this. Maggie is standing outside a polling station in Dundee’s Hilltown holding a Palestinian umbrella during a particularly heavy downpour. 

Maggie’s enduring support for Palestinian self-determination and simply holding an umbrella unleashed yet another torrent of online vitriol. Sadly, the attacks on Maggie during the campaign were not limited to those online. Some men do not like women who express their views.

To respond to this, Maggie and her campaign team took her message to the doors of the Hilltown area of Dundee’s Coldside ward, one of the hardest hit parts of Scotland. The response was serious discussion and an increased vote for Maggie, as people talked about real life and dealing with austerity and distrust in politicians.

A similar pattern of events took place in Forfar, Arbroath and Montrose. Maggie visited Buckie and spoke in Inverurie, Oldmeldrum and Stonehaven. Supporters campaigned in Carnoustie, Broughty Ferry, Kirriemuir, and elsewhere. Many hours of hard work in Aberdeen Central saw an increased vote (16.1%). 

Significant increases were additionally recorded at the vote counts for Dundee West (18.1%) and Dundee East(14.2%) and across the region. Why? People were listened to, the local was respected, debates were engaged with, and a history of supporting students, university unions, firefighters, RAAC campaigners, tenants and journalists and others was drawn on.

The Scottish Greens gained more votes than Labour across the North East. 

Climate and nature are central to Maggie Chapman’s politics, but so too are her links with the trade union movement, particularly in Aberdeen and Dundee. And visibly standing up to the far-right and its pathetic misogyny and racism helped build strong alliances. 

The Muslim Vote’s support for Scottish Green candidates across Scotland was a welcome development and the work of fellow candidate Fahd Asif, alongside Maggie, presented Green ideas to new audiences. 

For the Scottish Greens, and for Maggie, equality is central - and her committed support for Trans people and LGBT+ rights contributed to the Green vote in the North East increasing to over 30,000. 

There are now 15 Scottish Greens in the Parliament (almost double the total in the previous Parliament), with Democratic Left Scotland member Maggie Chapman amongst them. The Green's relationship to the Scottish National Party will need to be discussed as key policies on transport, childcare and taxing the super-rich are taken forward – the SNP of course won the largest number of seats in these Holyrood elections. 

Democratic Left Scotland will look to the Party of the European Left  to learn lessons of how to consolidate the benefits of re-electing a representative that understands the inter-sectional realities of people’s lives and opposes the hate and division of the far right. 

We plan to share that learning here, with Maggie and others in Parliament that will work to build hope and material progress for those that voted in a context where the politics of fear were relentlessly promoted. Thousands chose instead to enthusiastically vote for people and planet and against Reform and its allies. 

Published 10 May 2026