THIS election campaign for Holyrood is shaping up to become one of the most peculiar I can remember. Normally, politicians talk up their prospects of success. Even when they’re scrabbling down in the foothills of public opinion, they usually tell us that the polls have got it all wrong and they’re on course for spectacular success.

Yet not in the 2016 Scottish Parliament elections. Here we have opposition parties openly stating that their ambition is to remain in opposition. Labour and the Tories, the two principal UK parties, don’t even pretend that they are in running to take over the reins of government in Edinburgh.

Even more strangely, the dominant party in Scotland, who all but swept the board in the Westminster election just a year ago, and now have an unassailable lead in the polls, are busy playing down their prospects. Polls show the SNP are on course to win upwards of 70 constituency seats, which would give them a comfortable outright majority even in the unlikely event that they failed to win a single regional list seat.

Yet the message that seems to be coming out of SNP HQ, echoed by most of their activists, is that those who vote for The Scottish Green party or Rise on the list are risking a Unionist comeback. These alternative pro-independence parties are an irritating diversion. They’ve no hope of winning, so why don’t they just pack up and go home?

It’s right not to take voters for granted. I suspect that “two votes SNP strategy” is not driven by fear of the Unionist parties – it’s about trying to mop up every single pro-independence vote to squeeze out alternative, radical pro-independence voices that might cause the Scottish Government some inconvenience in the future.

The regional list vote is supposed to be about diversity and allowing people the opportunity to vote for parties whose policies they agree with. That’s why I’m disappointed the SNP have stuck the slogan “Nicola Sturgeon for First Minister” on their regional list ballot paper.

I want to see Nicola Sturgeon continue as First Minister. Unlike some uncharacteristically nervous SNP activists, I have not a scintilla of doubt that she will. I’m also pretty certain that voting for a smaller party on the regional list is not going to deliver Kezia Dugdale or Ruth Davidson into Bute House.

Much of the debate within the independence camp has so far focused on the arithmetic of the list vote. There is no escaping tactics, and tactical voting in politics. I voted SNP in the last General Election as part of the collective movement to demonstrate the strength of the independence movement in a first-past-the-post Westminster election.

It didn’t take complicated maths to work out that that was the right tactic. But how to achieve the largest pro-independence representation in a Scottish Parliament contest is a bit more of a contested area.

In this election, I’ll be voting for John Swinney in the constituency vote. I’ll be cheering when Women for Independence colleagues are returned for the SNP in their respective constituencies. I have no doubt they will be brilliant additions to the parliament.

The list vote gives me, and everyone, the chance to, lo and behold, vote for a party we agree with the most! The list gives us a chance to actually vote on the basis of ideas.

We can vote with longer term goals in mind – maybe to raise awareness and consciousness of more radical left or green policies, maybe to shift public opinion towards a different way of organising society. It takes longer than one election campaign to fundamentally shift the status quo. One thing is sure though: if we never vote for anyone who challenges the status quo, radical ideas will never have a chance to get off the ground.

Those in the SNP who say a vote for Rise or the Greens is a wasted vote because they have no hope of being elected seem to have forgotten the history of their own party. For decade after decade, the SNP was a small, isolated party.

People voted for it, not because the SNP had any hope of forming a government, or even winning a seat, but they agreed more with the party’s politics and values than with their rivals. I know, because I was one of these people.

The early Labour movement was also once a marginal force. When Keir Hardie stood for the newly-formed Scottish Labour Party in the Mid-Lanarkshire by-election in 1888 – on a programme incidentally that verged on Scottish independence – he took just 617 votes.

It was from these seeds that Labour and the SNP eventually grew into mass parties of government. So there is an honourable history of people in Scotland voting for small up-and coming parties with no prospect of short-term success.

During the referendum, we saw a broad, pluralist movement burst into life. At public meetings, ideas sprung at a rate so fast, it was impossible to note them all down. Everyone talked about ‘the new politics’ bulldozing down party political walls.

This election gives us a chance to reflect on the make-up of the new parliament after May 5. We can vote for parties, and individuals we are in tune with the most. That might be different people in different regions. I’ll be hoping Jenni Gunn of Rise gets a shout in my region, Mid Scotland and Fife. In the Lothians, I’d like to see Andy Wightman of the Greens get in. It’s liberating to be free of the “my party right or wrong” mentality. I hope there are more of us out there and the next parliament will shake things up.