Victory! SNP Won 'Historic Third Term' in Scottish Parliament Election

The Scottish National Party (SNP) has come out on top in Thursday's 2016 Scottish Parliament election, but lost its overall majority, final voting results indicated on Friday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — SNP remains Scotland's largest party, receiving over 45 percent of the vote and winning 63 out of the 129 seats in the Scottish parliament, according to a BBC breakdown of the results.

"The SNP has tonight won an historic third term as Scotland's government. I pledge to be First Minister for all of Scotland," SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon wrote on her official Twitter account.

The party, however, lost six seats and came short of the 65 seats needed for an outright majority.

The Conservative Party had its best election since the Scottish Parliament first convened in 1999, taking 31 seats, including seven constituency seats and 24 regional seats provided for by Scotland's additional member voting system.

The Labour Party was the main loser of Thursday's election, its number of seats shrinking from 37 to 24. The Greens finished up with six seats while the Liberal Democrats remained unchanged on five.

In the previous 2011 Scottish Parliament election, the SNP won 69 seats, followed by Labour with 37 and the Conservatives with 15.