Scotland's rainbow parliament: Looking back at 2003 election 20 years on - in pictures

It was only the second time voters had elected the Scottish Parliament, but on May 1, 2003, they chose a more politically diverse range of MSPs than Scotland has seen before or since.

The two biggest parties, Labour and the SNP, both lost seats and instead a sizeable number of Greens, Socialists and independents were elected to the parliament’s benches. When all the votes were counted, Labour had 50 seats, the SNP 27, the Tories 18 and Lib Dems 17, but there were seven Greens and six Scottish Socialists, where before they had one MSP each. Margo MacDonald was elected as an independent Lothian MSP, the equally independent Dennis Canavan was re-elected in Falkirk West, there was an MSP representing the Scottish Senior Citizens Party and another from the Save Stobhill Hospital campaign.

The Labour-Lib Dem coalition remained in power, but the character of the parliament over the next four years was different from before. And the number of independents grew when an SNP MSP and a Tory MSP were expelled from their parties.

Here are 13 pictures of the 2003 campaign and the election night as the results were declared.