{"id":957640,"date":"2026-05-13T19:00:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T19:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/957640\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T19:00:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T19:00:19","slug":"edinburgh-snp-group-leader-to-step-down-after-election-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/957640\/","title":{"rendered":"Edinburgh SNP Group leader to step down after election victory"},"content":{"rendered":"

THE SNP Group on The City of Edinburgh Council<\/a> will have a new leader from next week, Simita Kumar<\/a> was elected as the MSP for Edinburgh South Western last week.<\/p>\n

Kumar, who has been described as a \u201crising star\u201d<\/a> of the party, is expected to retain her seat on the council until next year\u2019s council elections, but give up her place as the SNP\u2019s top councillor.<\/p>\n

Kumar, who was born and raised in Fiji<\/a> and moved to Scotland as a teenager, became a councillor four years ago after a career in health and the public sector, and was elected SNP Group leader after just two years on the job.<\/p>\n

She comfortably retained Edinburgh South Western for the SNP over Labour\u2019s Catriona Munro<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"SimitaSimita Kumar outside parliament on her first day as an MSP on Monday \u00a9 2026 Martin McAdam<\/p>\n

During an interview at the start of the month, she said it has been a pleasure to lead Edinburgh\u2019s SNP Group. Her group sits in opposition to the Labour administration, despite being the largest group in the City Chambers.<\/p>\n

She outlined achievements like allocation of funds to housing through the visitor levy and holiday hubs as examples of the positive work the group has achieved.<\/p>\n

She added: \u201cThere\u2019s lots of things we\u2019ve been able to push despite being in opposition, so I\u2019m really proud of our record.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut yes, it\u2019s, like I said, it\u2019s been a journey, and I\u2019m incredibly grateful for my council colleagues.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really are, a family almost. It feels a very nice space to be and where we can come in and actually discuss our different ideas and have a constructive discussion and debate, which I think should be the obvious thing, but I don\u2019t think that\u2019s perhaps universal across all political parties.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also expressed confidence in her ability to adapt to Holyrood, having quickly learned the ropes of politics \u201con the job\u201d in the City Chambers.<\/p>\n

She informed councillors of her intention to stand down at an AGM on Tuesday and confirmed the news to the press today.<\/p>\n

The SNP Group will announce their new leader after another meeting next week.<\/p>\n

\"\"Simita Kumar at the election count at Ingliston after winning the Edinburgh Southwestern seat PHOTO \u00a9 The Edinburgh Reporter<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"THE SNP Group on The City of Edinburgh Council will have a new leader from next week, Simita…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":957641,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8816],"tags":[748,1102,37802,4884,210591,712,249815,17038,267415,10004,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-957640","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edinburgh","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-edinburgh","10":"tag-edinburgh-council","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-holyrood-election","13":"tag-scotland","14":"tag-scottish-election","15":"tag-scottish-parliament","16":"tag-simita-kumar","17":"tag-snp","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116568814699229321","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/957640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=957640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/957640\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/957641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=957640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=957640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=957640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}