SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon has been re-elected as First Minister by MSPs.

Sturgeon was re-elected to the office by 63 votes to five following a vote in Holyrood, with 59 abstentions. The SNP leader faced only one opponent in the ballot, the Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie.

The First Minister won the contest after only one round of voting. Sturgeon was aided by six Scottish Green MSPs abstaining from the vote which meant that the 63 votes in favour of Sturgeon from her party's MSPs was an unassailable number.

Nicola Sturgeon said that she would use the powers available to her as First Minister to make Scotland "an even better" country to live in.

Sturgeon said: "There is quite simply no greater privilege than to be elected to serve as the First Minister of our country. I pledge that for each and every day that I hold this office I will strive to fulfil the duties placed on me to the very best of my ability.

"I promise to use all of the powers that this office places in my hands to make this country an even better place to live."

The First Minister also called on her rival party leaders to work together with the Scottish Government for the "common good".

She said: "We represent different political parties for a reason. Each of us wants what is best for Scotland but we have different ideas, sometimes very different ideas, about how to achieve it.

"We should not seek to mask these differences. Politics at its best will always be a creative battle of ideas. But just as importantly, we should not allow our differences to obscure the areas of agreement that do exist between us.

"I hope that this session of parliament will see us expend as much effort on common ground as we do on debating our differences. That will not always, perhaps it will rarely, lead to unanimity but we must be prepared to reach out beyond our party boundaries to build alliances across the chamber and across the country as a whole for the common good."

The Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson accused that the last SNP government of eroded Holyrood's authority. She said that she hopes that minority government will strengthen parliament's role.

Davidson said: Now with a new minority government I hope we can look forward to five years where the parliament is once again able to demonstrate its authority, its oversight and its challenge.

"There has been a lot of talk of mandates in the days following the election and again from the First Minister today. The truth is that it is this parliament which holds the real unchallenged mandate - to decide on our First Minister, on our cabinet secretaries, the ministerial team and once that is done to scrutinise their decisions, their actions and the legislative programme they bring forth.

"To question and to challenge, to argue and to offer alternatives. Promote better governance in this place not for its own sake but for the people of Scotland. That is the task that I and my team dedicate ourselves to today."

Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale also referenced working with the parties in her remarks. Dugdale said Sturgeon has a choice between working with "progressive parties" or conservative forces.

She said: "She can look to the left where she'll find allies in progressive parties, who believe in the power of government to transform lives or she can look right, to conservative forces who ask government to do less and cut more.

"I hope and expect the First Minister to use her mandate to be radical and to use all the powers available to change the lives of the people who live in our great country.

"The SNP will now form a third term government. In the previous session of parliament the party governed as a majority but this will not be the case after the SNP failed to win the required number of seats."

The party won 63 seats at the election, two short of the required number for an overall majority.

On Wednesday morning the First Minister will travel to the Court of Session in Edinburgh to swear an oath of allegiance to the Queen in front of the nation's most senior judge

The oath will read: "I, Nicola Sturgeon, do swear that I will well and truly serve Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth in the office of First Minister, so help me God."

After the ceremony it is expected that the First Minister will begin to announce her new cabinet.

At her monthly press conference last week the SNP leader said that she would split the current finance role, which John Swinney holds, to create a new office which deals solely on economic growth.