THE GREENS are targeting ten seats in the Holyrood elections with their biggest campaign machine ever the party said.

Currently with two MSPs, the party is hopeful of winning one seat in every Scottish Parliament region and two each in Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Party Co-convenor, Glasgow MSP, Patrick Harvie, is also standing as a constituency candidate in Glasgow Kelvin, but while confident he can win, the move is seen more as a marker for future constituency battles as the party seeks to grow.

The Greens are targeting the second ballot, regional vote and looking to attract SNP supporters who want to make their second vote count and increase the number of pro-independence MSPs in Holyrood.

With the SNP expected to win most if not all Glasgow seats Nicola Sturgeon’s party is unlikely to win any second vote seats in the city, although not impossible.

The Greens will be spending more than ever with at least £350,000 set aside for the campaign and have a full time staffed election operation for the first time with 16 staff.

It is the increase in membership, a more than four-fold increase from 2000 to 9000 since the referendum, that the Greens hope will provide the push.

With more activists available to campaign on streets and in communities it hopes to reach more potential supporters than ever before.

Mr Harvie said: “There is a strategic contest where SNP regional vote might not be worth very much. A regional vote for the Greens is something worth contemplating for many people.”

The Greens will face a challenge for that vote form new left wing party alliance Rise, which developed from the referendum campaign and will also be supporting independence supporters who are not necessarily SNP.

Mr Harvie however, said: “I don’t think Rise are going to be a challenge.

“Standing for rise is not the same as sanding for a party with experience and a track record.

“We can make a pitch to a wider range of voters.”

The latest opinion poll from TNS puts the Greens on six percent, neck and neck with the LibDems.

Calculations on the poll translate that level of support into four seats, doubling their number but well short of the target of 10.