As Wales goes to the polls under a new and complex electoral system, uncertainty looms at every stage – from counting the votes to forming a stable government. Understanding what is at stake has never been more important.
This Senedd election marks a clear shift away from the political rhythms Wales has been used to over the past two decades. The structures underpinning the election – voting trends, the voting system, constituency boundaries and parliamentary arithmetic – combine to create a level of uncertainty that now carries through from polling day into government formation and, crucially, into governing itself.
There are three distinct but connected areas of jeopardy at play.
1. Uncertain results
The first relates to the result itself. Polling ahead of this election has been unusually varied, not only because the political picture is unclear in broad terms, but because pollsters are still grappling with how best to model outcomes under a new electoral system and new boundaries.
Across most polls, the pattern is consistent: Plaid Cymru and Reform are competing for first place, with Labour clearly in third. Where the uncertainty arises is in the margins – particularly the final fifth and sixth seats in each constituency. Differences in polling methodology, combined with the maths used to allocate the seats and the assumptions built into projection models, makes it difficult to predict the final numbers.
This uncertainty is compounded by the fact that six parties are now meaningfully competing for a significant share of the vote. For the last 26 years, Labour have polled around 37% of the vote, with Plaid Cymru and the Conservatives on 20 to 25% each. That pattern is now over, and vote share is considerably more fragmented. Wales is, in that sense, arriving at a destination that proportional democracies across Europe have long inhabited.
As a result, there is a genuine range of possible Senedd compositions and means the final shape of the Senedd is unlikely to be clear until well into Friday’s count. The system itself injects jeopardy into the result.
2. Electing a First Minister
The second area of jeopardy emerges after the votes are counted. This election does not operate on first‑past‑the‑post assumptions. The largest party is not automatically the governing party; what matters is whether a majority of 49 votes can be assembled on the Senedd floor. That distinction is critical. Government formation will depend not on who tops the poll, but on which blocs can come together to nominate a First Minister in the first week or two after the election.
Current polling points consistently towards a progressive majority across Plaid Cymru, Labour and potentially the Greens, even in scenarios where Reform emerges as the single largest party. There is a lot of money on Rhun ap Iorwerth becoming First Minister.
But that is not a done deal. If a damaged and denuded Labour Group sit on its hands in the first vote, the Conservatives could support Reform UK and Dan Thomas will be elected as First Minister.
If the parties of the left and centre fail to agree the way forward, a so-called blue bloc, uniting Reform UK and the Conservatives, could emerge as a significant force. Such a bloc would likely hold fewer seats overall, but it would represent a substantial proportion of the electorate, and its existence would complicate the task of progressive governance considerably.
The post‑election process will therefore involve a series of procedural and political decisions: the election of the Llywydd, the timing of First Minister nominations, and behind‑the‑scenes negotiations between parties. None of this is automatic, and Wales has seen before how quickly this can become complicated. Let’s not forget that UKIP and the Conservatives nominate Plaid Cymru’s Leanne Wood for First Minister in 2016.
3. Governing a Fragmented Senedd
The third element of jeopardy concerns the future of the next government. Under most plausible outcomes, any administration will be a minority government with roughly a third of Senedd seats. However much a party might want to run a minority government, delivering a stable government over a four-year term under such circumstances will be nearly impossible.
A minority government must secure majority support not only for its budget, but for every piece of legislation it wishes to pass. This matters in practical terms. Plaid Cymru’s manifesto, for example, sets out an extensive legislative programme and the creation of multiple new public bodies – with potentially 30 new laws required. Delivering that agenda would require sustained cooperation from other parties, vote by vote.
And if Reform UK want to make sweeping changes to government funding, they will need a majority to vote on it’s budget in Autumn – a distinctly unlikely scenario.
Informal, one‑off deals can carry a government only so far. The real pressure point will be the budget in the Autumn. At that stage, support comes at the price of real concessions, potentially extending into areas that the governing party did not prioritise or may actively resist. With only a third of the chamber, the scale of compromise required is materially different from what Wales has been used to under previous near‑majority governments.
This opens the door to more formalised arrangements – confidence‑and‑supply agreements or structured cooperation deals, or even a formal coalition – not as a preference, but as a necessity. It also raises the possibility that the shape of government changes over the course of the Senedd term rather than remaining fixed.
In reality, we should not see the manifesto of the leading party as delivered in full over the 4-year term, but as a starting point for ongoing negotiations, with elements from multiple parties delivered over time. This is not a bug – it is the fundamental logic of continental-style multiparty democracy. Under first-past-the-post, a vote for Party A was, in effect, a vote for Party A’s manifesto – especially if Party A won a majority. Under the new system, a vote for any party within a bloc shapes the proportions and negotiating strengths of that bloc. The more seats a party holds, the more of its manifesto it can credibly insist upon in coalition talks.
Reframing our Politics
Taken together, these three layers of jeopardy reshape how power operates in Wales, and it should change how we frame elections, politics and government. Influence will not sit exclusively with the government of the day, but with those parties whose support is needed to pass budgets and legislation. For stakeholders, including business, this requires a different approach: sustained engagement not only with ministers, but with opposition parties who may be instrumental in determining outcomes.
This election does not signal chaos, but it does mark a transition. Wales is moving toward a more overtly multiparty, negotiated form of politics – closer to systems seen elsewhere in Europe – where government is something that must be continually constructed, not simply inherited on election night.
We should frame our politics more like that seen in across Scandinavia, the Benelux countries and Germany – than in terms of the majoritarian tradition of Westminster. In those systems, electoral success is measured not in outright majorities but in proportions: what share of the progressive bloc does your party command? What share of the vote gives you credibility at the negotiating table? How do your numbers translate into the policies your supporters care about?
Winning and losing, in the old sense, is no longer the right vocabulary. What matters now is proportions – within the blocs, and between them. That is the reality of Welsh democracy from this point forward. The sooner all of us, voters and politicians alike, internalise it, the healthier our democracy will be.
It requires voters to think differently about what their vote means, and it provides opportunities for ongoing engagement as the nature of government changes over time.
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