The Scottish Labour party's deputy leader is considering throwing her hat into the ring following the resignation of Wendy Alexander.

Cathy Jamieson has said she cannot rule out standing for the role as the party faced up to finding its fifth leader since Holyrood was established.

She said: "I've not ruled it out. You could interpret that if I have not ruled it out, then I am actively considering the position."

Ms Jamieson spoke the day after Ms Alexander - the elder sister of International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander - resigned as Labour leader in the Scottish Parliament.

Ms Alexander, a close ally of Gordon Brown, is the fourth person to lead the party in Scotland since devolution, following on from Donald Dewar, Henry McLeish and Jack McConnell.

She stood down on Saturday - two days after Holyrood's Standards Committee ruled she should be barred from the Scottish Parliament for one day for failing to promptly declare donations to her leadership campaign last summer.

Other candidates to succeed her could include former health minister Andy Kerr, former communities minister Margaret Curran and Iain Gray - a minister in the first Scottish Parliament who lost his seat in 2003 but returned to Holyrood in 2007.

When she quit on Saturday, Ms Alexander claimed she had been the victim of a "partisan" decision by the committee, and that there had been a "breach of natural justice".

But Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond instead suggested Ms Alexander was the victim of "machinations from within the Labour Party".

Mr Salmond claimed details of the donations had been given to the press from within Ms Alexander's "inner circle".

He said: "I know it's difficult when you're resigning to say 'Look, I got shot by my own side', but the dogs in the street in Scotland know the internal turmoil within the Labour Party and that's the genesis behind some of their problems."

During the donations row, Ms Alexander has maintained she had acted in good faith, and on the advice of officials.

However Dr Jim Dyer, the Scottish Parliamentary Standards Commissioner, took his own legal advice on the matter.

He concluded that Ms Alexander's failure to register eight donations as gifts within the set timescale amounted to a breach of Section 5 of the Interests of Members of the Scottish Parliament Act 2006.

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