The Scottish National Party won a majority in Scotland's parliamentary election and its leader promised Friday to hold a vote on independence from the United Kingdom, according to AP. Voters in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland elected members of regional legislatures Thursday and hundreds of local council seats were at stake around Britain. A national referendum was also held on whether to change Britain's parliamentary election system. The Liberal Democrats, the junior partner in the coalition government, were dealt the biggest defeats across the country. While results were still incomplete Friday, the SNP became the first party since Scotland's regional government was formed in 1999 to win a majority of the 129 seats in the Scottish Parliament. By mid-afternoon, the SNP had won 65 seats, a bare majority; Labour had 32, Conservatives 11 and others seven. Scotland's Labour Party leader Iain Gray said he would resign in the fall. Voters appeared to approve how the Scottish National Party has led a coalition government over the past four years and also backed programs to preserve free university tuition and to give the elderly free personal care. In local elections across Britain, the Liberal Democrats lost more than 500 council seats even as ballot counting continued. That was a massive defeat for the junior partner in Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservative-led coalition government, and sparked fresh calls for the resignation of party leader Nick Clegg, who is also Cameron's deputy. The Liberal Democrats lost control of six local councils including Sheffield, Clegg's own town. "We have taken a real knock last night. But we need to get up, dust ourselves down and move on," said Clegg. The Conservatives gained about 80 council seats, while Labour gained more than 570. Cameron, who marked his first year in office on Friday, said his party had "fought a strong campaign explaining why we took difficult decisions to sort out the mess we inherited from Labour." Inflation has been surging in Britain, despite sluggish growth and harsh spending cuts that are slashing government jobs and hiking university tuition fees. The parliamentary election system votes were still being counted Friday, but earlier polls suggested that voters would reject changing the system in which the candidate with the most votes wins the seat. The Liberal Democrats had supported the Alternate Vote system, where voters rank candidates in order of preference. The winner is the first candidate to secure a majority, either in the first round of counting or in succeeding rounds by picking up votes as the lowest-ranked candidates are eliminated. Despite its worst showing in 80 years in Scotland, the Labour Party just missed a majority in the Welsh Assembly, winning 30 of the 60 seats.
