He won more than 75% of party members' votes in a ballot.

The Banff and Buchan MP's running mate, Glasgow MSP Nicola Sturgeon, triumphed in the deputy leader contest and will head the party in the Scottish Parliament.

"This return to the past will not take the Nationalists forward and the Nationalists still have no ideas to take Scotland forward.

"There is an exciting debate happening about Scotland's future.

"Unfortunately the Nationalists have decided to exclude themselves from that with their continuing obsession with the constitution."

"I congratulate Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon on their victory. I look forward to the occasions in the future where we will set out our contrasting visions for Scotland.

"However, we should not be fooled into believing that a change of personnel at the top will do anything to resolve the deep-seated problems which mean the SNP have an ever-decreasing appeal to the Scottish public.

"The election of Nicola Sturgeon as deputy to a leader who is not even a member of the Scottish Parliament demonstrates that the SNP are not serious about Scotland's parliament.

"This election confirms that the SNP are trapped by their failure to adapt and take account of the political landscape since the establishment of the Scottish Parliament."

"Alex Salmond is the man who has made the SNP the left-wing irrelevance that it is today.

"There is a conundrum, which I leave to the SNP to resolve, of a nationalist party being run by a man in a UK parliament that he doesn't believe in. But that is their problem.

"I don't care who is running the SNP show in Scotland. They are still playing the same old songs and dancing to the same tired tunes."

"It's time now for the SNP to re-join the wider independence movement.

"If the SNP are serious about delivering independence in our lifetime they must realise that they are only one part of the wider independence movement which now includes the Scottish Socialist Party, the Greens and independence-supporting individual MSPs.

"The SNP must now ditch their selfish party political attitude to the other pro-independence parties and join with the SSP and others in building the independence movement.

"It is a sad fact that in today's devolved Scotland four out of six of Scotland's political parties are now led from London and for the SNP to be in that position is undoubtedly a real problem for them.

"How a party that stands for independence from Westminster can be led from there is completely beyond me."

"We congratulate Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon on their victory and look forward to working with them on political and constitutional issues where common ground exists between our parties."

"You don't join a party because of Alex Salmond's blue eyes or Nicola's personality.

"You join because you believe it has the correct analysis, strategy and tactics and I can't see that with Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon.

"Both of them have been in the leadership cadre over the last 10 years, when the party has greatly reduced in size and lost thousands of votes.