Nicola Sturgeon: the Scottish Iron Lady and her struggle to overcome her mentor's scandals

Nicola Sturgeon, by Luis Grañena

There is in Nicola Sturgeon (Irvine, Scotland, 50 years old) a deliberate kindness that barely lets out a telltale gesture.

It was one morning, in her office in the Scottish Parliament, during a chat with a small group of correspondents, that an uncomfortable question provoked an authoritarian grin in her.

It barely lasted a second.

"What makes you think that Brussels would applaud a secessionist process in Europe?"

Thirty-six years dedicated body and soul to politics, with an unalterable goal, give enough strength to ignore obstacles and contradictions.

• Alex Salmond's sex scandal reveals the internal war of Scottish independence

The great secret of the main minister of the Home Rule of Scotland is to have managed to convince the voters that nationalism does not exist.

The official name of the formation he leads is the Scottish National Party (SNP).

And on occasion, Sturgeon has regretted not getting rid of the term "national" yet.

The UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, soon read the threat letters, and every time he intervenes in the House of Commons to discuss the independence challenge he maliciously refers to the SNP as a Scottish "nationalist" party.

“We tend to identify that expression with an extreme right that I reject.

The Scottish independence movement, and my own party, is very progressive, civilized, and focused on defending self-government, ”Sturgeon explained to EL PAÍS in January 2020.

As in all formations, however, civility stays at the door when internal wars break out.

It is already known that, in politics, there are friends, enemies and party colleagues.

And comrade Alex Salmond, the charismatic SNP leader who promoted Scottish independence and sponsored Sturgeon on his rise, has been the chief minister's nightmare and worst threat.

She left the front line after losing the UK separation referendum in 2014, and left the reins of the party in the hands of her successor.

It is a story a thousand times repeated and rehearsed around the world.

A first leader, histrionic, self-centered and passionate, puts a political movement on the map.

A second, in this case, provides the seriousness, rigor and good sense necessary to consolidate the image of the government party among voters.

With his fierce opposition to Brexit and his temperate management of the pandemic, Sturgeon had managed to achieve that prestige that assured him, according to all the polls, a landslide victory in the next regional elections in May.

The constant shadow of Salmond, however, has finally managed to deteriorate the image of his successor, although it remains to be seen whether the coup has been definitive or provisional.

The autonomous government's clumsy handling of the entire scandal in which the former leader was involved, acquitted by a popular jury of twelve crimes against sexual freedom - including rape - ended up rebounding against Sturgeon.

The internal investigation promoted by his Executive was plagued with errors and lack of guarantees, to the point of being forced to compensate Salmond with more than half a million euros for the court ruling.

The Autonomous Parliament has not been able to demonstrate illegalities in the process, but has ended up accusing the main minister of lying and confusing the deputies in her intervention before the commission created to address the case, earlier this month.

Few believe that Sturgeon knew nothing of his mentor's excesses, or that she was not informed of the investigation against him that his government had hastily opened.

Critics suspect that he seized the opportunity to dispose of his enemy Salmond.

Enemy who, to top it all, announced last week that it will compete in the regional elections in May with a new line-up: Alba (as Scotland is known in Gaelic).

The conservative English press has devoted rivers of ink to questioning the honorability of the head of the Scottish Government.

It has been the necessary hole to try to stop the advances of an independence movement that has its main hope in Sturgeon.

Although she was always in favor, after the defeat (55% versus 45%) of the 2014 referendum, of letting time pass and calming the waters, Brexit (which the Scots had rejected for the most part), the pandemic, and above all Johnson's dire image in the north of the island convinced him that it was necessary to redouble the bet.

Sturgeon has promised that, if the SNP comfortably wins the May elections, a new independence consultation will be held.

He has gone even further than he thought, by fueling the idea that it is legally possible to hold such a referendum even if London, as it has already warned, rejects it.

Sturgeon entered politics inspired by another woman, but in the opposite direction to what might be thought. It was the toughness of Margaret Thatcher, who left a trail of wasteland in Scotland with her policy of industrial reconversion, that convinced a 16-year-old girl whose personal path led to the Right to make the leap. She understood, as she has told herself, that the answer was not Labor, then dominant in Scottish politics, but to seek the prosperity of the nation through its independence. The problem with a goal not yet achieved is that it becomes the center of all things. If Sturgeon fails in his endeavor, no one will remember the SNP's management at the head of the Autonomous Government. And unlike Thatcher, who was eventually defeated by the internal enemy when it had already turned the British landscape upside down, Scottish politics would be forced to grapple with a new historical disappointment.