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Plaid Senedd Members told they won’t automatically get top candidate spots at next election

By Mark Mansfield
Rhun ap Iorwerth and Plaid Cymru's Senedd Members

Martin Shipton

Plaid Cymru’s national executive committee (NEC) has rejected a suggestion that sitting MSs should receive preferential treatment when candidates are selected for the next Senedd election in 2026.

Nation.Cymru has been told that a number of MSs had taken the view that, as incumbents, they should be given top places on candidate lists, making it virtually certain that they would be re-elected.

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Pushback

But there was, we understand, considerable pushback at the NEC meeting, and the suggestion was rejected.

Now Plaid MSs, like everyone else, will have to wait months to find out how candidates for the 2026 election will be selected.

As part of the Senedd reform arrangements, under which the number of MSs will increase from 60 to 96, a new electoral system will be introduced. In the six elections held so far since what was initially the National Assembly was set up in 1999, 40 of the 60 Members have been elected in first-past-the-post contests.

The remaining 20 Members have been elected in five regions on a proportional representation (PR) system.

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Super constituencies

But in 2026, Wales will be split up into 16 “super constituencies”, each of which will elect six MSs using a PR system known as “Closed Lists”, with people voting for a party rather than for individuals.

The system has been strongly criticised by many who argue that it gives too much power to the parties in the selection of candidates, and deprives individual voters of the opportunity to choose the candidates they want to support.

It’s been suggested that party officials will fix selection processes so that unimaginative and docile MSs will get top places rather than troublesome mavericks prepared to speak their mind.

Under the better known Single Transferable Vote PR system, voters list the candidates they want to back according to their own preferences, sometimes mixing and matching candidates from different parties.

But while this can be seen as to the advantage of ordinary voters, it can make sitting MSs uneasy, knowing that another candidate from their party could receive more votes from them and deprive them of the chance of winning.

Placate

It has been suggested that Labour insisted on the Closed List system rather than STV to placate those of its MSs who are looking to be re-elected in 2026. It was made clear to Plaid during negotiations for the Co-operation Agreement between the two parties that lasted until earlier this year that Labour was not prepared to budge and that the whole deal would be off unless Plaid accepted Closed List, which the party subsequently did.

A Plaid source told us: “My understanding is that the NEC wasn’t prepared to go along with the idea of reserving top slots in the Closed Lists for sitting MSs who want to be re-elected. They will have to take their chances with everyone else.”

A Plaid Cymru spokesperson said: “All parties are currently discussing processes for selecting candidates for the new electoral system in the Senedd. Plaid Cymru will bring proposals before its National Council within the next few months, along the principles of allowing party members a full say as the party selects a strong team of candidates to challenge Labour in 2026.”

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15 comments

John Ellis

As a first and not deeply considered reaction on my part, Plaid's decision on this issue seems to me to be right. It may well be that a local constituency association is no longer entirely happy with their previous candidate, even if he or she has actually won an election to place them in the Senedd. And what local party members think matters, or at least ought to - after all, they live on their local patch and must be, to some degree at least, aware of local voter opinion. But although I've got quite a bit of inside experience of the way local politics ticks - though that was in my years living in England and not in Wales - I wouldn't remotely want to make any sort of ex cathedra pronouncement on this subject and I'd be curious to know what other posters might think. I'm wholly open to other opinions.

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J Jones

Local party members, or all political party members, are less than 1% of the total population that politicians are supposed to be serving. But those who do immerse themselves in politics usually do so because they are more radical and have more to win / lose. Hence the current political polarity that verges towards extremism and crackpot ideas, insulting to many of the 99% of the population who devote their time and energy to working or volunteering to help others. But then politics has always been a dirty game, recent history confirming it is for the self serving, serving themselves.

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John Ellis

I agree with most of that. And yet the fact remains that all elected members rely enormously on their local supporters to get them elected each time round, the vast majority of those members represent a political faction, and thus the confidence of the local party in the person for whom they'll be called upon to campaign has to matter. Particularly as most voters most of the time cast their vote for the candidate's party rather than on the grounds of their confidence in the personal quality of that candidate.

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Rob Pountney

Personally I think the new electoral system is a complete dogs breakfast, which I suppose is consistent with the history of the Welsh government with respect to local government reform, 'lets get a commission to look at this' years later 'lets completely ignore the findings' a few years later 'lets get a commission to look at this' wait a few years, and ignore the findings again, there have also been half arsed plans for 'voluntary mergers', the only attempt at that (Bridgend & VoG) was refused, there is also a 'voluntary' opportunity to change the local electoral system in individual local authorities, but only to STV which (of course) is the least proportional of the alternatives to FPTP, never mind the fact that it is so complicated and labour intensive to count that it takes ages to count (look at Ireland, it is rare that they announce ANY election result within a week of the vote happening)... The current Senedd plan is also a mess, the point of the d'Hondt system is to balance votes with seats, the thin is it is NOT designed to work with tiny numbers of seats for election, the smaller the number of seats in contention the less accurate it is, and the more biased to larger parties, this proposal has shafted the LibDems and the Greens, for them even worse than the previous system which was blatantly biased towards Labour, as are local council elections (which Labour controlled fiefdom is going to voluntarily chance the voting system to STV when STV gives them a smaller unfair advantage), the failure to reform the 22 local authorities stems from the same root... Everyone knows that this new (farcical) 'paired constituencies' closed list plan is a mess and will need to be reformed in short order... That Plaid has chosen to put the make up of the lists in party members hands means that at least Plaid have some input in to their proposed candidates from outside the party hierarchy, making the best of a bad lot I would say...

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John Ellis

I'm dubious about aspects of the impending system too, and I can summarize those doubts quite briefly. I think that having a particular individual identifiable MS matters: not just because that's all we've ever known at both local and national levels, but because my experience suggests that voters often value having a specific named individual as their representative - especially when s/he's been around along time and is felt to be an effective and responsive elected member. A closed list pretty much shuts that out. I'm not a sufficient student of electoral systems to credibly rank one against another, though my perception is that the 'perfect system' doesn't exist. But I'm not absolutely hostile to STV, simply because its implementation would make every vote count to a degree that is simply not the case under FPTP in most of the numerous places where I've lived over the years.

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Don Edwards

Well they thought they could stay on the gravy train unchallenged. So much for the people of wales.

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Why vote

Who benefits from this, the voters, the candidates, or parties?

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Arfon Jones

Well done NEC, hope Plaid Cymru have some 'troublesome mavericks' at the top of their closed lists. A shakeup is well overdue in all the parties Members of the Senedd.

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hdavies15

Troublesome mavericks ? More like compliant oddball radicals. The entire closed list scam is an exercise in ensuring members conform to some undisclosed template, even greyer and duller than the present lot.

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Barnaby

This is what proportional representation looks like. And most people seem to want PR.

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In reply to Barnaby

hdavies15

STV with open lists where you can see exactly what you are getting would be a far more credible solution. O.K you might get a lot of hung Senedds but that would at least force all these dopey selfish egotists and party hacks to work together for the good of the nation. Poor cohesion and lack of team working could be highlighted as good reasons for not supporting the local rep next time around.

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Billy James

And out of this jolly band of twelve only ONE has ever had a real job in finance the rest are a collection of public funded chancers.....

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FrankC

So a job in finance is the high mark for you?😂 What a dumb comment!

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Arfon Jones

There is no higher vocation than to be a public servant.

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Old Curmudgeon

Having seen how Labour feel about the integrity of politicians and it seems that the bar is as low as ‘don’t break the rules’ I have concerns about the type of character that a party will choose. The debacle of the previous FM of Wales has shown that not everyone is up to the job. My question is if I vote for a party who will select my representative and how do I know that the selector has my interest at heart?

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Replying to hdavies15 Cancel

Troublesome mavericks ? More like compliant oddball radicals. The entire closed list scam is an exercise in ensuring members conform to some undisclosed template, even greyer and duller than the present lot.

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