Updated on 17/03/2026 to include information on constituency boundaries and more accurate voting information.
Scotland is preparing for its seventh general election since the devolved parliament was established in 1999. It is due to be held on May 7, 2026 and will elect 126 members.
Parties are coming out with their regional candidates. For Stirling, candidates have been announced for the SNP, Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrats, and one independent, while Reform UK and the Green Party have not announced their candidates at the time of writing.
The Stirling constituency for Holyrood is not the same as the area covered by Stirling Council. The university grounds, and halls, are within the Clackmannanshire and Dunblane constituency. More information can be found on this postcode checker.
Stirling, meet your candidates.
SNP Candidate, Alyn Smith.
Smith was Stirling’s SNP MP between 2019 and 2024. His main focuses would be Scottish independence and rejoining the EU. Other focuses for Stirling would be:
- Strengthening public services such as education and the NHS.
- Investing in the economy and public services.
Labour Candidate, Dr Kainde Manji.
Dr Kainde Manji is the Labour candidate for Stirling. Her motto is “fight for a better future”, as she feels let down by what she perceives as 18 years of lies by the SNP. Her priorities are:
- Protecting the NHS, give funding towards them and stop the rush for appointments.
- Support and resources for young people’s mental health.
- Reinvest in education make it better for future generations.
- Improvement on public transport.
- Tackling the housing crisis.
Scottish Conservative Candidate, Stephen Kerr.
Stephen Kerr is the Conservative Party candidate for Stirling. Kerr’s focus is on conservative principles and scrutinising the Scottish government on issues such as crime rates, public sector organisation and efficiency, education, and other social issues. Key themes in his campaign on social media include:
- On taxation, he believes that the SNP, Labour and Reform UK just want our money and he will be able to make us keep more of it to ourselves.
- Kerr believes that the SNP have been too soft on criminals, which is an injustice to the victims.
- His anti-independence stance is highlighted, and Kerr believes that SNP “has wasted months of parliamentary time”.
- Local infrastructure is a key problem he would like to fix, in particular by strengthening broadband and telephone networks in Stirling.
Scottish Liberal Democrats Candidate, Jill Reilly.
Stirling’s Liberal Democrat candidate is Jill Reilly, who has worked in both the private and public sector. The main focuses of the party are a fair society, climate change, and poverty. Her campaign focuses on public transport and suitability, especially:
- The importance of public transportation, and she would like to make it better by making transportation more accessible between towns and cities.
- The decarbonisation of public transport to make it more sustainable.
Unfortunately, there is not much information on Matthew Riley who is the candidate running as an independent.
You can register to vote for Scottish elections here if you are a resident and over 14 years old. For UK elections, you must be 16 years old and a British, Irish, or Commonwealth citizen to vote.
You must register before Monday, April 20 to be able to vote in the upcoming elections on May 7, and while you can register at both a home and at term-time address, you may only vote once.
Featured Image Credit: Matthew Ross via Wikimedia Commons