The campaign for political control of Glasgow City Council is underway.

All the main parties have launched their national local election campaigns and the manifestos for Glasgow will be complete when the Conservatives launch theirs this week.

While there are several parties contesting the election, it is a fight between Labour and the SNP as the only parties standing enough candidates to form a majority.

The SNP is looking to build on their historic win in 2017 in the city when it took charge of the council for the first time by electing more councillors and win a majority this time. At the very least they will hope to be the biggest party again as they were five years ago.

It is standing 50 candidates across the 23 wards.

Labour is desperate to regain control of the council having lost a council election in the city for the first time in several decades.

READ MORE:Glasgow council election: SNP set out vision for greener city in manifesto

The party will need to get everyone of their 43 candidates elected to win a majority but if it emerged as the biggest party it would be seen as a huge success after years of losing elections to the SNP in Glasgow.

The Conservatives make up the third biggest party in the city chambers and will be campaigning to increase their number form the surprise result when they won eight seats in 2017.

The Greens won seven last time around and will look to improve on that to increase their influence on whichever party emerges as the one in charge.

Susan Aitken, SNP group leader said she would step down from her position if she was to lose the election.

Glasgow Times:

However. she is confident her record stands up to scrutiny and that the SNP has had to clear up after Labour.

She said: “Overturning the failures of past Labour administrations has not been easy and while progress can take time, we remain determined to deliver change.”

The SNP said it has delivered on a range of issues.

It said it has presided over “record levels of jobs and investment “including 2500 in the Barclays development in Tradeston.

READ MORE:Labour puts cleansing in Glasgow top of council election agenda

Two big issues are the state of the city centre and cleansing.

The SNP said it has set up a Glasgow City Centre Taskforce with the private sector to “respond to the impact of the pandemic”.

And it said it has “modernized refuse collection routes to improve efficiency” and “introduced enhanced a fly tipping enforcement approach.

Malcolm Cunning goes into his first election as Labour Group leader, and he has ruled out any coalition deal with either the SNP or the Conservatives if his party is the largest on May 6.

Glasgow Times:

The party’s manifesto highlighted cleansing and .. as their key campaigning pledges.

Labour claim to be attracting voters who opted for the SNP last time.

Polling however, suggests the SNP are still ahead nationally in the council elections.

Labour claims the last five years have been a failure.

It states: Glasgow needs a fresh start. The SNP government in Edinburgh and the SNP administration her in Glasgow have failed the city.”

It said the SNP has cut council funding “year after year after year”.

The party said it would “Launch the biggest ever campaign to make the case for fair funding”.

It plans to include communities political parties, trade unions, campaign groups, community organisations and businesses and academics.

The Tories have been campaigning on cleansing for months and will make it the centrepiece of their efforts.

READ MORE: Tories target SNP in council election launch in Glasgow

They are also targeting Susan Aitken the council leader.

READ MORE:Greens set out Glasgow council plans for election

The greens are looking to and are focusing on local issues as well as the climate emergency.

How it works

Glasgow will elect 85 councillors on May 5.

The voting system for the council elections is different to both the Scottish Parliament and Westminster elections.

MPs at the House of Commons are elected under the traditional first past the post system where each constituency elects on MP, and Holyrood uses the additional Member system, with a constituency MSP elected and them proportional representation used to elect regional MSPs on a list based on the proportion to reflect the overall vote shares.

At the council it is another form of Proportional Representation that is used, the Single Transferable Vote.

In Glasgow there are 23 wards 16 of them elect four councillors and seven wards elect three.

Voters rank the candidates on the ballot paper in order of preference with their top choice ranked 1 and so on.

In 2017 the system resulted in SNP having 39 councillors, Labour 31, the Conservatives eight and the Greens seven.

A party needs to get at least 43 councillors elected to win a majority. If no-one gets that number then either the party with the most seats forms a minority administration or two or more parties join together to achieve a majority and form a coalition.

Voting opens at polling stations across the city at 7am until 10 pm on Thursday May 5.

The votes will be counted the following day with results expected by Friday afternoon.