Regional elections were held in Scotland on Thursday 3 May 1990, as part of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973, and were the first test of public opinion on the Community Charge, which had been introduced in Scotland in 1989.

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1990 Scottish regional elections

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First party Second party   Leader Neil Kinnock Margaret Thatcher Party Labour Conservative Leader since 2 October 1983 11 February 1975 Seats won 223 52 Seat change - 13 Percentage 44.0 19.2 Swing 0.1 2.3   Third party Fourth party   Leader Gordon Wilson Malcolm Bruce Party SNP Liberal Democrats Leader since 15 September 1979 3 March 1988 Seats won 42 40 Seat change 6 - Percentage 21.8 8.0 Swing 3.6 7.1

Colours denote the winning party with outright control

Results by ward

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The Labour Party dominated the election, gaining the most seats and votes, even though their total vote was slightly down compared with 1986. This was the last election fought under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher, and her Conservative Party suffered a decline of 13 seats, mainly due to the introduction of the unpopular Poll Tax in 1989. The Conservative Government had recently given tax concessions to ratepayers in England and Wales, excluding Scotland, with criticism extended in particular to then-Secretary of State for Scotland Malcolm Rifkind, who was portrayed to not care about the interests of Scotland.

The newly formed Social and Liberal Democrats (a merger of the SDP and Liberals) fared badly, dropping 6.4% of the vote that the Alliance had taken at the previous election. Despite this, they stayed stationary on 40 seats. The Scottish National Party, once again the second-largest party in terms of vote share, benefitted from modest gains to take almost 22% of the vote. The Scottish Greens gained their first ever councillor in the Highland region. Turnout was marginally up 0.3% to 45.9%.^[2]