Waiting for the gun

It has been four years, the term of an Amercian Presidency, since Rhodri Morgan first announced he would stand down as First Minister on his seventieth birthday. Rhodri, who originally timed his own departure plan to complement that of Sue Essex (remember her?) has taken Labour through an election and into a coalition with Plaid Cymru. Yet here we are – September 2009 – and the promised hour has arrived. Despite appeals from some quarters to stay on, the First Minister will shortly make clear his decision to stand down from the leadership of Welsh Labour. It is a post he has held for almost a decade and, in many ways, he has been Welsh Labour.

Yet now the age of Rhodri is drawing to a close and the Welsh Labour Party, just waiting for his word, will begin the process of electing its new leader. It is a contest that is likely to last about two months from the time that the First Minister resigns as leader of Welsh Labour and will be, of course, the major political story here in Wales between now and Christmas. There is no apology from us at WalesHome.org for making sure we guide you through every twist and turn of the battle. With reporting like this out there, a more accurate assessment is surely needed.

WalesHome.org will keep our focus very much on the leadership election in coming months. We would always cover a political leadership contest in detail. But when that contest will also produce a new First Minister for Wales, there is no choice to do anything else. If we’re not one of the key places to read news and insight on the Labour leadership campaign then we’ll be asking ourselves why.

As the first week of the Assembly term ends we are now a lot clearer about who will be the contenders to succeed Rhodri. Three names are now pretty much guaranteed to run. Carwyn Jones AM, the Counsel General and Business Manager, has long been considered the front runner candidate and has been conducting himself as an heir to Rhodri for some time. In many ways he seems the natural successor and his campaign team have been keen to stress his versatility and affability. That is not to say he is a pure continuity candidate, but rather that he is perhaps the most steadying of the three options.

In contrast, the second candidate, Huw Lewis AM, is more semi-detached from the current administration. He has not been a Minister for two years and is definitely an alternative, or antidote, to the current direction of Welsh Labour travel. Less comfortable with the deal with Plaid Cymru than his rivals, he also stands out because he gives the impression of wanting to be leader of Welsh Labour perhaps more than First Minister.

The third contender, Health Minister Edwina Hart AM, has been more of an enigma candidate. Not in terms of her personality and direction of travel, which are clear enough, but in terms of whether she will stand at all. Although she has still not made a decision, the open endorsement this week by pivotal fixer Andrew Davies AM of her possible candidacy is the clearest sign yet that she will emerge. Andrew is not a person to make throwaway remarks, and his backing was a major strategic boost.

To begin the race, two things need to happen. One is that each candidate then needs to find 6 or more Labour AMs out of the group of 26 to nominate them to stand on the ballot paper. Rest assured that all three possible candidates have the support necessary to pass this threshold. The BBC Vaughan’s Roderick twittered on Wednesday, “Carwyn 9 AC, Edwina 8, Huw 6.” The final figures within the Labour Assembly group will not be too far from this estimate, even if there is a little wiggle room…

The second thing is that the First Minister needs to resign, which he will do. But since he has not done so and there has already been a huge flurry of campaigning, just think how exciting it will get when the vacancy is confirmed…