 |
|
The National Assembly for Wales Election 1999 and Plaid Cymru - The Party of Wales |
|
National Assembly for Wales election results, 1999
The Labour Party won the May 1997 General Election, and in July the new government published the White Paper 'A Voice for Wales', a detailed outline of the party's devolution proposals for Wales. Following this a referendum was held on 18 September 1997 to see if the people of Wales were in favour of devolution. |
 |
||||||||
|
This was the first time that the Welsh people had been allowed to vote on the devolution question since 1979 when 80% of the people who voted were against the proposal. In 1997 only 50.3% of the population went out to vote and the result was very close. 552,689 voted against devolution and 559,419 voted in favour of it. Following the referendum, Parliament passed the Government for Wales Bill 1998 that led to the formation of the National Assembly for Wales and the transfer of the Secretary of State's powers and responsibilities to the Assembly. |
||||||||
| On 6 May 1999 the first elections were held to choose candidates to represent Wales in the Assembly. A proportional representation system was used for the first time. Every elector had two votes, the first for the preferred constituency candidate (40 seats) and the second for a Party, to elect the 20 regional members. The first First Secretary of the Assembly, Alun Michael was elected by the regional vote. |
|
||||||||
 |
The Labour Party won 28 of the 60 seats and no party had a clear overall majority in the new Assembly. Plaid Cymru did better than expected. Seats traditionally loyal to Labour such as Rhondda, Llanelli and Islwyn fell to Plaid Cymru who won a total of 17 seats. In the 1997 General Election Plaid Cymru had won 6.8% of the votes cast, but in 1999 they won 28.4% of the constituency vote and 30.59% of the regional vote. | ||||||||
| Some of the most surprising wins for Plaid Cymru were Helen Mary Jones gaining Llanelli and Gareth Jones in Conwy. Geraint Davies also took the Rhondda seat even though Labour had held the Parliamentary seat for generations. Another seat that suprisingly fell to Plaid Cymru was Islwyn. The Labour Member of Parliament there, Don Touhig, had won the seat in a 1995 by-election with a majority of over 13,000, following Neil Kinnock's appointment to European Commissioner. But it was the Plaid Cymru candidate, Brian Hancock who won the National Assembly for Wales seat, beating the Labour candidate by 604 votes. |
|
||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
Click here to see the results and election leaflets for the National
Assembly of Wales Election, 1999. Select the constituency or region from the menus to view the names of the candidates and the election results. Then click on the candidate's name to view the election leaflet.
|
|||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
