Sitting MSP, Colin Fox, and the party's policy co-ordinator, Alan McCombes, were nominated before the deadline.

The election to replace Tommy Sheridan as national convener will take place at a party conference on 12-13 February.

Mr Fox was the first nomination and Mr McCombes put his name forward to avoid a "coronation" of his rival.

Colin Fox is the Scottish Socialist Party's justice spokesman. He is one of the organisers of the Edinburgh Mayday Festival and founded the Edinburgh People's Festival.

He was also frontman for the alternative Holyrood parliament opening ceremony at Calton Hill last year.

Mr Fox, who lives in Edinburgh, was formerly a Labour Party Young Socialist before becoming a founder member of the SSP.

Alan McCombes, who is not an MSP, has been active in Socialist politics since the 1970s. Alongside Tommy Sheridan, he played a crucial role in the anti-poll tax movement.

His 1988 pamphlet, How To Beat The Poll Tax, written a year before the tax was introduced, set out the strategy of a nationwide non-payment campaign.

Mr McCombes called for a Scottish Socialist Alliance to unite the left in 1995. The new organisation was launched six months later and laid the basis for the emergence of the Scottish Socialist Party.

In 2002/03, Mr McCombes was co-ordinator of the SSP's Scottish Parliament election campaign which increased the party's MSPs from one to six.