By Stewart Paterson, Hannah Rodger and Connor McCann

THE SNP is on course to win the city council election in Glasgow.

Early indications from the counting at the Emirates Arena suggest the party will secure more councillors across the city than Labour.

The party needs 43 elected to win a majority, which when the Evening Times went to press today, it was not yet certain.

However SNP and Labour sources said they expected the Nationalists to emerge as the largest party.

The first areas to be counted were Shettleston and Langside where party leaders Frank McAveety of Labour and Susan Aitken of  the SNP were standing.

Mr McAveety was comfortably ahead in first preference votes and assured of re-election as councillor for the area.

The Conservatives looked to have a strong showing early on in the East End ward also.

The SNP candidate Laura Doherty was taking most of the party’s first preference votes, of the three it is fielding.

Tory candidate Thomas Kerr was winning a significant proportion of votes.

Ms Aitken was running close with Labour’s deputy leader in the city Archie Graham but was ahead as the first few thousand votes were counted.

An SNP source at the count said: “It is early but it looks like we could be on course for winning a majority.”

A Labour source said the party’s vote in certain areas was looking good however, admitted: “It is not going to be a good day.”

The hope within the Labour camp is they can prevent the SNP from winning an overall majority.

The SNP is standing 56 candidates, Labour 43, The Conservatives, LibDems and Greens 23 each, one in each ward.

Tension mounted early as the council election count got underway at the Emirates arena at 9am today.

Ballot boxes were delivered to the East End venue overnight ready for counting to begin.

Hundreds of party supporters filled the giant sports hall and watched as counters spread out the white ballot papers and began counting.

Prior to any results being announced, party candidates gathered with supporters.

Dozens of eagle-eyed volunteers with clipboards hovered near the counting stations, frantically trying to keep track of their party’s progress.

Glasgow MSPs and MPs including Alison Thewlis, Anas Sarwar, Stewart McDonald and Patrick Harvie were among those showing their support.

The wards of Partick East, Langside and Shettleston were the first to be counted.

Alex Wilson, SNP candidate for the Cardonald area, said he is feeling “hopeful” about the results although it was still too early to say whether his party would have a majority of seats at the City Chambers.

He said: “We are hoping to get three seats for the SNP in Cardonald, to serve the people of Cardonald. So far I’m undecided about how the results are going to go as it seems too early to say, but we are remaining hopeful.”

Labour is fielding two experienced candidates in the Cardonald ward Alistair Watson and Matt Kerr.

Adjudicators counting ballot papers at the Langside ward declared many invalid, as they had not been filled in correctly.

While some had been ticked or crossed rather than numbered, others had used the same number for different candidates, rendering their vote useless.

Many of the spoiled papers being declared at the Langside counting station related to votes for the SNP’s Susan Aitken and Anna Richardson.

While the number of spoiled ballots is currently unknown, the apparent volume of them raised concerns with some of the candidates.