Edinburgh City Centre by-election

There's go to be a by-election in Edinburgh. The sitting SNP councillor for the City Centre ward is resigning to go to Harvard. Normally,  council by-election wouldn't be all that interesting, certainly not enough to warrant its own blog post. However, there are two things that make this interesting:

1. Should the SNP lose the seat and the Lib-Dems not gain it, then the ruling Lib-Nat coalition in Edinburgh will no longer have enough seats to control the council and will need to bring on board the Tories or the Greens, (unless the Libs decided to ditch the Nats and hook up with Labour - not likely at the moment!).

2. More interestingly, City Centre ward is perhaps the closest 5-way marginal seat in Scotland. The results in 2007 were:
SNP 20.3% (elected)
Con 20.1% (elected)
LD 19.7% (elected)
Lab 17.9%
Grn 16.8%
By the time the Green candidate was eliminated, he was only 18 votes behind the Labour candidate (who was a sitting councillor). Transfers from the Greens then took the LD candidate over the threshold for election. The surplus from the LD then saw the SNP candidate elected and kept the Tory far enough ahead of Labour to be elected.

Of course, a lot has changed since then. The Lib-Dem vote, in particular, can be expected to have dropped quite sharply as they experience the backlash of nationally being in coalition with the Tories. The Tory vote has also probably dropped (although their New Town vote in this ward is probably quite loyal). Labour's vote should have risen, but in Scotland generally they find themselves in a bit of shell-shock after their drubbing in May. The SNP generally seem to be on the rise, but might themselves suffer a wee bit for being in coalition locally with the Lib-Dems. The Greens were disappointed not to pick up more seats in May, but did increase their vote across Edinburgh and finished ahead of the Lib-Dems on the list in all Edinburgh constituencies except Western.

So putting all that together what is likely to happen. On first preferences, the SNP will probably finish first and a little bit further ahead. Then it could end up being very close between the Tories, Labour and the Greens, with the LDs probably dropping to 5th. After that supposition gets even more tentative. Currently transfers from the LDs are likely to break more in favour of the Greens, probably followed by the SNP and then Labour and the Tories. This might stretch the SNP lead. Then...
If the Greens are eliminated next, their transfers would probably also favour the SNP, then Labour and finally the Tories. Meaning the Tories would be next to go. Most of their votes probably wouldn't transfer but the ones that would, would break in the SNP's favour. Result SNP victory.
If the Tories were eliminated after the LDs, again most votes probably won't transfer. Those that do would heavily favour SNP, with probably the Greens marginally ahead of Labour. If the Greens went next, the SNP would clearly beat Labour, but if Labour went next, their transfers might break in the Greens' favour although probably not by enough to catch the SNP.
If Labour were eliminated after the LDs, their transfers would almost certainly ensure that the Greens were ahead of the Tories, although to stand any chance the Greens would need to be ahead of the SNP too at this stage, as Tory transfers will probably favour the SNP.

So, by far the most likely outcome is an SNP victory. Surprisingly, the party with the best chance of beating them is the Greens, but only if they can get ahead of Labour early on and even then their chances are slim. In reality, they will probably be content with a strong showing putting them in a good place for one of three seats that this ward will elect next May.

Of course, if the current thinking prevails and this election in the city Centre of Edinburgh is held in August in the middle of the festival then absolutely anything could happen!