Alex Salmond, Scotland’s Former First Minister, Dies at 69

Mr. Salmond led the Scottish National Party twice, guiding it from a fringe political group into a powerful electoral force in Britain.

Alex Salmond, the former first minister of Scotland who campaigned for the country to leave the United Kingdom and led the nation during an independence referendum, has died at 69.

Mr. Salmond, who as first minister led the Scottish government from 2007 to 2014, died after delivering a speech in North Macedonia on Saturday, the BBC reported. Mr. Salmond had led the Scottish National Party twice, guiding it from a fringe political group into a powerful force that won an overall majority in the Scottish Parliament in 2011. It was a push for Scotland’s political independence that had propelled his own career, and he was the nation’s first pro-independence first minister.

That movement fractured after a failed independence referendum and a multiyear saga in which Mr. Salmond was accused of multiple sexual assaults and eventually acquitted. But Mr. Salmond continued to campaign for the cause until his death, and his influence in British politics persisted after he stepped down as first minister.

Keir Starmer, the prime minister of Britain, paid tribute to Mr. Salmond, calling him a “monumental figure of Scottish and U.K. politics” for more than three decades.

“He leaves behind a lasting legacy,” Mr. Starmer said. “As First Minister of Scotland, he cared deeply about Scotland’s heritage, history and culture as well as the communities he represented as M.P. and M.S.P. over many years of service.”

Mr. Salmond had served as a member of British Parliament in Westminster, or as an M.P., from 1987 to 2010 and again from 2015 to 2017, as well as serving as a member of the Scottish Parliament, or M.S.P.

While Scotland — like England, Wales and Northern Ireland — is part of the United Kingdom and governed from Westminster, since 1999, the three nations also have had their own governments and parliaments, which control various devolved issues.

Mr. Salmond led Scotland during the 2014 independence referendum, but resigned from his posts of first minister and of head of the Scottish National Party after the Scottish public decided that Scotland should remain a part of the United Kingdom. Some 55 percent voted against Scotland’s independence while 45 percent voted in favor of the move.

As he stepped down from his post in 2014, he told the nation, “For me as leader, my time is nearly over, but for Scotland the campaign continues, and the dream shall never die.”

His deputy, and one-time political protégé, Nicola Sturgeon, succeed him as party leader and first minister after running uncontested, herself becoming a giant of the Scottish independence movement.

The Scottish National Party, which Mr. Salmond led for decades, said in a statement that he “brought the S.N.P. into the mainstream,” calling Mr. Salmond “a titan of the independence movement.”

Anas Sarwar, the leader of Scotland’s Labour Party, in a statement posted on the social media platform X, said that Mr. Salmond was “a central figure in politics for over three decades and his contribution to the Scottish political landscape can not be overstated.”

He added: “The sad news of Alex Salmond’s passing today will come as a shock to all who knew him in Scotland, across the U.K. and beyond.”

But Mr. Salmond’s long-running career was not without controversy. In 2018, he resigned from the Scottish National Party as accusations emerged of sexual misconduct. A court later ruled that the Scottish Government’s handling of the complaints against Mr. Salmond had been “unlawful” and Mr. Salmond’s legal costs were paid out.

He was eventually tried on more than a dozen charges of sexual assault, which included accusations from nine different women and one count of attempted rape. He was acquitted in 2020.

The fallout from the assault charges severely damaged his relationship with Ms. Sturgeon, and fractured the political movement for an independent Scotland.

It also cast a shadow on Ms. Sturgeon’s career as questions emerged about what she knew about the accusations. Ms. Sturgeon would later also unexpectedly step down from the post of first minister in 2023, and was arrested by police officers investigating the finances of the Scottish National Party, but was released without charge.

But the party infighting has divided the S.N.P. into warring camps that has cost it politically. Ms. Sturgeon’s successor, Humza Yousaf, resigned from the leadership post earlier this year, and the party lost 39 seats and half a million votes in this summer’s general election.

John Swinney, the current first minister of Scotland and head of the S.N.P., said in a statement that he was “deeply shocked and saddened at the untimely death” of Mr. Salmond.

“Alex worked tirelessly and fought fearlessly for the country that he loved and for her independence,” Mr. Swinney said. “He took the Scottish National Party from the fringes of Scottish politics into government and led Scotland so close to becoming an independent country.”

In 2021, Mr. Salmond founded Scotland’s Alba party, a nationalist party dedicated to campaigning for Scottish independence, which he led at the time of his death, but the party has yet to win any seats at local or general elections.

Still, Mr. Salmond remained active in politics, speaking regularly about Scottish independence. He was in North Macedonia to speak on a panel as part of the Ohrid Cultural Diplomacy Forum, a three-day conference focused on international cooperation. The cause of Mr. Salmond’s death was not immediately available.