FORMER minister Sarah Boyack is to fill the vacancy left by Kezia Dugdale’s exit from Holyrood, Scottish Labour has confirmed.
Ms Boyack, 57, was an MSP for 15 years, but failed to get re-elected in 2016.
She said she had "unfinished business" at parliament.
In the early years of devolution, she served as Minister for the Environment, Planning and Transport, when she introduced free bus travel for people over 60 and disabled people.
She also introduced - then dropped - a Labour plan to introduce a workplace parking levy, an SNP-Green policy which her party now opposes.
She is currently Head of Public Affairs at the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations, a post she will leave to become a Lothians list MSP when Ms Dugdale steps down in June.
The former Scottish Labour leader announced on Monday she was quitting frontline politics to become the first full-time director of the John Smith Centre at Glasgow University.
Ms Dugdale, a Remain-backing supporter of a People’s Vote, had clashed with her party’s over its ambiguous position on Brexit.
She also felt let down when the party in London withdrew funding for her defence of a defamation case brought against her by Wings Over Scotland blogger Stuart Campbell.
Elected an MSP in 2011, she was deputy leader from December 2014 to June 2015, then leader from August that year until August 2017, when she unexpectedly resigned.
Ms Boyack said: "I’ve had the privilege to have worked with SFHA, its members and stakeholders for the last two years and have seen the impact both of the Scottish Parliament in framing the work they do and their day in day out support for communities and the affordable, safe and secure homes that they provide for tenants.
"However, there is unfinished business for me. In the last three years the case for concerted action on climate change and the need to redouble our efforts to tackle poverty has accelerated. In Edinburgh, the affordable, accessible housing people need has become harder and harder to secure. And then there’s the uncertainty and division caused by Brexit.
"These are huge challenges and I’d relish the opportunity to serve in the Scottish Parliament. Finally, I’d want to pay tribute to the hard work of Kez and her team in the Lothians."
Ms Boyack replaces Ms Dugdale as she the next unelected person on the party's regional list for the Lothians.
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