NICOLA Sturgeon has urged the man she appointed her childcare minister to quit Holyrood after he was found to have harassed two women by “exploiting his position of power.”

After leaving the government in November, Mark McDonald formally resigned from the SNP on Tuesday, but said he intends to carry on as the Independent MSP for Aberdeen Donside.

His decision means he stands to collect £200,000 in pay before the 2021 Holyrood election.

Watch: Sex row minister quits SNP after admitting misconduct

However the First Minister, who initially downplayed Mr McDonald’s behaviour, and said he would continue to be a “good MSP”, made clear he was no longer welcome at parliament.

She said: “He was elected as an SNP MSP. If his behaviour is such that he himself considers he cannot continue as an SNP MSP, then it would be appropriate to give his constituents the opportunity to elect a new MSP.”

She said the SNP would be “very optimistic” of holding Mr McDonald’s seat in a byelection.

The party beat the Tories by 11,630 votes in 2016, however a Tory resurgence across the north east means the Donside seat is now far more marginal.

The Westminster equivalent of the constituency is Gordon, where Alex Salmond lost last June, and there is speculation the former First Minister might stand in any byelection.

Mr McDonald resigned a day after he was told an SNP investigation into his conduct found he had had deliberately and persistently pestered two women with “inappropriate and unwanted” messages, and paid them “unwanted attention causing distress”.

Watch: Sex row minister quits SNP after admitting misconduct

Labour MSP Rhoda Grant said: "Mark McDonald decided his conduct was not fit for a minister or an SNP MSP - but somehow it is acceptable for an MSP without party affiliation.

"People in Aberdeen Donside will rightly question that."

Tory MSP Alexander Burnett also suggested Mr McDonald should quit as an MSP.

The Herald:

ANALYSIS: Investigation took longer than rewriting the devolution settlement

THE Mark McDonald saga has been one long SNP mess.

Nicola Sturgeon was far too quick to believe her childcare minister when he said the inappropriate behaviour for which he resigned was merely a botched attempt at humour.

“He’s a good MSP and he will continue to be so,” she said.

Then he admitted causing a woman considerable distress.

At which point, SNP HQ, run by Ms Sturgeon’s husband, chief executive Peter Murrell, belatedly suspended Mr McDonald and began an epic investigation into his conduct.

The party went into lockdown, refusing to respond to media enquiries about the case.

Finally, after 109 days – almost six weeks longer than the Smith Commission took to rewrite the devolution settlement in 2014 – the conclusions were shared with Mr McDonald on Monday. The SNP published only a summary, not the full report.

That leaves unanswered questions about the explicitness of the messages Mr McDonald sent two women, the intensity of his harassment, and whether any SNP MSPs defended him or challenged his accusers.

Nor do we know who knew what about his behaviour in the SNP and when they knew it.

Aberdeen Donside’s voters are being denied all the facts.

Tory MSP Alexander Burnett said: “The SNP now need to come clean and publish the report into his behaviour so that the public can judge whether he is fit to remain as an MSP.”

Mr McDonald intends to return to parliament next week.

But he is already a pariah. No party wants his office nearby.

Can he even hold his surgeries unaccompanied?

With Ms Sturgeon calling on him to quit Holyrood, and most of his constituents wanting him to do likewise, his problems, and the SNP’s discomfort, are certainly not over yet.