Michael Marra and Paul Sweeney are the MSPs party insiders say could square off if there is a vacancy.
Anas Sarwar’s departure as Scottish Labour leader is inevitable.
Leaders cannot survive the sort of drubbing he presided over on Friday and his five years in charge will end sooner rather than later.
The failures of Keir Starmer were the overwhelming cause of Labour’s Holyrood election defeat.
But Sarwar ran a poor campaign and with leadership comes accountability.
His “safety first” manifesto was tepid and focusing on 38 seats was a strategic blunder.
A better campaign may only have secured a couple of extra seats, but Sarwar knows he needs to own his mistakes.
The question is who will bid to succeed Sarwar after he completes his unfinished business with Scottish Labour.
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Although deputy leader Jackie Baillie is formidable, she is a major shareholder in Sarwar Inc and would be seen as the continuity candidate.
The two most likely contenders are MSPs who snuck back into Holyrood on Friday by fine margins.
Dundonian Michael Marra, a List MSP in the North East, was a left-winger as a student who was opposed to Tony Blair and the Iraq War.
The 46 year old was even a member of the Campaign for Socialism, an internal group widely loathed by party moderates.
But Marra has unquestionably moved rightwards since his student days, although one ally says he remains on the “pragmatic” Left.
If he was leader, he would be less of a populist than Sarwar and more willing to adopt controversial positions.
As a sceptic of the SNP’s gender recognition Bill, it is not impossible to imagine him apologising for Labour’s previous support for the legislation.
Allies would also expect him to champion the oil and gas industry, rather than fudge the issue.
Sweeney, 37, is another MSP who has been on a political journey during a career that has spanned Westminster and Holyrood.
The Glasgow MSP was a critic of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn before partially buying into a project that was rejected by voters.
He is now seen as being on the party’s soft Left.
Sweeney’s admirers say he is a good communicator with the skills to reach younger voters who do not give Labour a second look.
He also has distance from the Sarwar project and could credibly portray himself as the clean hands candidate.
Others say he needs to talk less about Glasgow heritage – a niche issue for most of the country.
Regardless of who succeeds Sarwar, the real issue for Scottish Labour is who and what they stand for.
Reform UK picked up sizable support last week from older voters who are fed up with the mainstream parties.
The Greens did likewise with younger people while the SNP still have a lock on a large chunk of the pro-independence vote.
Who does Labour stand for in 2026? And how can any message connect to voters while they are tied to the UK party?
Answering those questions will be the job of Scottish Labour’s eleventh leader in the devolved era.
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