Scottish election: Iain Gray narrowly re-elected
- Published
Scottish Labour leader Iain Gray has been re-elected as an MSP with a narrow majority of just 151 votes.
Mr Gray retained his seat in the East Lothian constituency with 12,536 votes, following a "bundle" recount.
SNP candidate David Berry came second with 12,385, representing a significant reduction in Mr Gray's 2007 notional majority of more than 2,000.
Mr Gray said: "These are very bad results. My heart goes out to colleagues who have lost their seats."
He added: "We have failed to convince enough Lib Dem voters, that have moved away from the Lib Dems, to vote Labour.
"We will work with anyone who will work with us to get Scotland working again."
Iain Gray was elected as MSP for East Lothian in 2007 and has been leader of Scottish Labour since 2008.
A former teacher, who grew up in Edinburgh and Inverness, he was first an MSP in 1999 for Edinburgh Pentlands.
In the same year he assumed the position of deputy minister for health and community care under Donald Dewar's leadership.
In 2000 he became deputy justice minister before taking on the role of minister for social justice in 2001.
Mr Gray took over as minister for enterprise, transport and lifelong learning under leader Jack McConnell when Wendy Alexander resigned from the post in 2002.
As enterprise minister he was criticised by business leaders at CBI Scotland after he refused to cut tax in 2003.
He was also forced to ask Scotland's auditor general to investigate allegations of financial mismanagement by economic development agency Scottish Enterprise in the same year.
After losing his Edinburgh Pentlands seat in the 2003 elections to Conservative David McLetchie, Mr Gray left the Scottish Parliament.
He worked as a special adviser to Alistair Darling, who was then the Secretary of State for Scotland, for four years from 2003 to 2007 in Westminster.
In 2007 he returned to Holyrood as the MSP for East Lothian.
After Wendy Alexander's resignation as leader of Scottish Labour he was the first MSP to officially announce a bid for the position.
In September 2008 he beat competitors Cathy Jamieson and Andy Kerr to become the leader of the Labour party in the Scottish Parliament.