EDINBURGH   -  Humza Yousaf announced his res­ignation as Scotland’s first minis­ter on Monday, before he was due to face two confidence votes this week sparked by his ditching of ju­nior coalition partners in a row over climate policy. The 39-year-old quit following a turbulent year as head of the devolved administration, dur­ing which support for his pro-inde­pendence Scottish National Party (SNP) has fallen.

Yousaf had been facing growing calls to resign since unceremonious­ly ending the SNP’s power-sharing deal with the Scottish Greens in the Scottish parliament last week. His government had earlier abandoned am­bitious targets for the transition to net-ze­ro carbon emissions, angering the Greens.

The opposition Scottish Conserva­tives then lodged a vote of no-confidence in Yousaf, which was due to be held as early as Wednesday and which the first min­ister was at risk of losing. Scottish Labour also lodged another no-con­fidence vote in his government.

The Tories, Labour, Liberal Demo­crats and Greens had all said they would vote against him in the per­sonal vote, forcing him to seek the backing of the sole lawmaker from the pro-independence Alba party.

Alba’s Ash Regan is a former SNP colleague of Yousaf who ran against him in the March 2023 leadership election to succeed Nicola Sturgeon as first minister. Yousaf -- the first Muslim leader of a major UK politi­cal party -- said in a statement that he thought winning was “absolutely possible”. But he added that he was “not willing to trade in my values or principles or do deals with whom­ever simply for retaining power”. He added: “I have concluded that repair­ing our relationships across the po­litical divide can only be done with someone else at the helm.” Yousaf’s pro-independence SNP has 63 mem­bers in the 129-seat parliament -- two short of a majority. The presiding officer has a casting vote.

Yousaf initially said he had no in­tention of quitting and intended to win the confidence votes. But follow­ing his announcement, parliament now has 28 days to choose a new first minister. He only became Scot­land’s leader 13 months ago, after Sturgeon sensationally announced she was quitting, citing tiredness af­ter eight years in charge.