North-east Scotland: The SNP captured two new seats in north-east Scotland to hold six of the nine in the area but the statistics reveal a major swing to the party.

The SNP captured two new seats in north-east Scotland to hold six of the nine in the area but the statistics reveal a major swing to the party.

Alex Salmond required a swing of 7.75% to win Gordon from Liberal Democrat Nora Radcliffe and it looked like a neck and neck battle.

However, her hard work as the sitting MSP was no match for the high profile of the SNP leader who is revered by those in the part of the constituency he represented at Westminster and he showed the way to his fellow candidates with an 10.7% swing to the SNP from the LibDems.

"The people of North East Scotland are the most generous independent minded people in the world and it has been a privilege all my political life to serve them," said Mr Salmond.

He promised to continue to do so but, as he made that pledge from the platform, the confusion surrounding the voting was beginning to emerge and it was unclear whether he would do that as First Minister or leader of the opposition.

Joe Fitzpatrick, the other new SNP MSP achieved a 6.1% swing to beat former fellow Dundee councillor and bitter rival Jill Shimi of the Labour Party into second place in Dundee West.

Shona Robison completed the Dundee double with an 8.4% swing to increase her slender 2003 majority in Dundee East from 90 to 4524. That was a bitter blow for Labour's Iain Luke who lost the Westminster election for Dundee West to Robinson's husband Stewart Hosie in 2005.

In fact there was a swing to the SNP in every one of the seats. Brian Adam, who won Aberdeen North four years ago from Labour's Elaine Thomson secured a 6.6% swing to increase his majority over her eight fold to 3749.

In Aberdeen South Liberal Democrat leader Nicol Stephen saw his 8000 majority slashed to less than 3000 as the SNP success continued.

Maureen Watt, a well known political figure in the area, finished fourth in the last election. This time she leapfrogged both the Conservatives, who finished fourth, and the Labour Party, into second place.

The 11.2% swing, one of the largest in the area, was not enough for success but she did secure a seat through the regional list.

Mr Stephen's slump in fortune was blamed partly on his handling of the controversial proposed Aberdeen by-pass which runs through his constituency.

He said that his party's campaign had been focused on issues which would make a real difference to people's lives and he would give priority to achieving these including a renewables revolution, more local health centres and major investment in education and sports facilities.

His Liberal Democrat colleague Mike Rumbles was in a similar situation. He was re-elected with a majority of 5170 but suffered an 8.5% swing to the SNP.

In Angus, Andrew Welsh increased his majority to achieve an 8243 majority with a 1.7 swing while Stewart Stevenson and Richard Lochhead complete the successful night for the SNP with a 3.3% swing in both Banff and Buchan and Moray and significant majorities.

The final parliamentary result came at 3pm yesterday after a recount which confirmed that Lewis MacDonald, Deputy Health Minister, had been re-elected with a majority of 382. Just before the result was announced in the early hours of Friday morning SNP leader Alex Salmond complained that there were more spoiled papers than the majority and it was decided to hold a recount.

Mr MacDonald criticised Mr Salmond for demanding the recount.

He said: "Mr Salmond made a very direct approach to the returning officer who clearly, faced with such a direct approach from the leader of the opposition, was bound to respond in some way.

"The returning officer's faith in his own staff has been more than vindicated by the count.

"If you compare the provisional figures last night with what we saw this afternoon it does make you wonder why the complaints were raised. It was clear to my campaign team that the count was being done in a very clear, consistent and fair manner."

He said most of the contested papers were either blank or had two crosses instead of one and couldn't be counted and the difference in the recount was in "single figures". He said he would not have asked for a recount had the situation been reversed.

However, Douglas Paterson, the returning officer, said that if there had been any pressure it would have been resisted and the decision to recount had been made because of the experiences and the doubts people had about the count.

He said that even though the recount had been so similar to the original he believed he had taken the right decision.

The delay meant that the regional list was not announced until yesterday afternoon when the SNP secured two seats compared to one in 2003. Nigel Don was their other MSP elected with Maureen Watt. Their gain was at the expense of the Conservatives who dropped one to two as they were at the last election and David Davidson missing out. Labour remained the same on two seats - Richard Baker and Marilyn Glen were both returned.