Llanelli (Assembly constituency)
Encyclopedia
Llanelli is a constituency
United Kingdom constituencies
In the United Kingdom , each of the electoral areas or divisions called constituencies elects one or more members to a parliament or assembly.Within the United Kingdom there are now five bodies with members elected by constituencies:...

 of the National Assembly for Wales
National Assembly for Wales
The National Assembly for Wales is a devolved assembly with power to make legislation in Wales. The Assembly comprises 60 members, who are known as Assembly Members, or AMs...

. It elects one Assembly Member by the first past the post method of election. Also, however, it is one of eight constituencies in the Mid and West Wales
Mid and West Wales (National Assembly for Wales constituency)
Mid and West Wales is an electoral region of the National Assembly for Wales, consisting of eight constituencies. The region elects twelve members, eight directly elected constituency members and four additional members...

 electoral region, which elects four additional members
Additional Member System
The Additional Member System is the term used in the United Kingdom for the mixed member proportional representation voting system used in Scotland, Wales and the London Assembly....

, in addition to eight constituency members, to produce a degree of proportional representation
Proportional representation
Proportional representation is a concept in voting systems used to elect an assembly or council. PR means that the number of seats won by a party or group of candidates is proportionate to the number of votes received. For example, under a PR voting system if 30% of voters support a particular...

 for the region as a whole.

1999 to 2007

The constituency was created for the first election to the Assembly
Welsh Assembly election, 1999
The first National Assembly for Wales elections were held on 6 May 1999. The overall turnout of voters was 46.3%. Although the Welsh Labour Party were the biggest party, they did not gain enough seats to form a majority government and instead entered into coalition with the Liberal Democrats...

, in 1999, with the name and boundaries of the Llanelli Westminster constituency
Llanelli (UK Parliament constituency)
Llanelli is a constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. From 1918 to 1970 the official spelling of the constituency name was Llanelly...

. It is a Dyfed constituency, one of five constituencies covering, and entirely within, the preserved county
Preserved counties of Wales
The preserved counties of Wales are the current areas used in Wales for the ceremonial purposes of Lieutenancy and Shrievalty. They are based on the counties created by the Local Government Act 1972 and used for local government and other purposes between 1974 and 1996.-Usage:The Local Government ...

 of Dyfed
Dyfed
Dyfed is a preserved county of Wales. It was created on 1 April 1974 under the terms of the Local Government Act 1972, and covered approximately the same geographic extent as the ancient Principality of Deheubarth, although excluding the Gower Peninsula and the area west of the River Tawe...

.

The other four Dyfed constituencies are Carmarthen East and Dinefwr, Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire, Ceredigion and Preseli Pembrokeshire. They are all within the Mid and West Wales electoral region.

The region consists of the eight constituencies of Brecon and Radnorshire, Carmarthen East and Dinefwr, Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire, Ceredigion, Llanelli, Meirionnydd Nant Conwy
Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (National Assembly for Wales constituency)
Meirionnydd Nant Conwy was a constituency of the National Assembly for Wales. It elected one Assembly Member by the first past the post method of election...

, Montgomeryshire and Preseli Pembrokeshire.

From 2007

Boundaries changed for the 2007 Assembly election. Llanelli remained one of five Dyfed constituencies and one of eight constituencies in the Mid and West Wales region. However, boundaries within Dyfed changed, to realign them with local government ward boundaries and to reduce disparities in the sizes of constituency electorates, and the boundaries of the region changed, to align them with the boundaries of preserved counties.

The other four Dyfed constituencies were, again, Carmarthen East and Dinefwr, Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire, Ceredigion and Preseli Pembrokeshire, all within the Mid and West Wales electoral region.

The region consisted of the constituencies of Brecon and Radnorshire, Carmarthen East and Dinefwr, Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire, Ceredigion, Dwyfor Meirionnydd, Llanelli, Montgomeryshire and Preseli Pembrokeshire.

For Westminster purposes, the same new constituency boundaries will become effective for the 2010 United Kingdom general election.

Voting

In general election
General election
In a parliamentary political system, a general election is an election in which all or most members of a given political body are chosen. The term is usually used to refer to elections held for a nation's primary legislative body, as distinguished from by-elections and local elections.The term...

s for the National Assembly for Wales, each voter has two votes. The first vote may be used to vote for a candidate to become the Assembly Member for the voter's constituency, elected by the first past the post system. The second vote may be used to vote for a regional closed party list
Closed list
Closed list describes the variant of party-list proportional representation where voters can only vote for political parties as a whole and thus have no influence on the party-supplied order in which party candidates are elected...

 of candidates. Additional member seats are allocated from the lists by the d'Hondt method
D'Hondt method
The d'Hondt method is a highest averages method for allocating seats in party-list proportional representation. The method described is named after Belgian mathematician Victor D'Hondt who described it in 1878...

, with constituency results being taken into account in the allocation.

It is a marginal seat between Plaid and the Labour Party and has never been held by the same party for more than one term with Plaid and Labour alternating

Members of the National Assembly for Wales

ElectionMemberParty
1999 Helen Mary Jones
Helen Mary Jones
Helen Mary Jones is a Plaid Cymru politician, who was a member of the National Assembly for Wales from 1999 to 2011.-Background:...

Plaid Cymru
Plaid Cymru
' is a political party in Wales. It advocates the establishment of an independent Welsh state within the European Union. was formed in 1925 and won its first seat in 1966...

2003 Catherine Thomas
Catherine Thomas
Catherine Thomas born in 1963 is a Welsh politician and former Labour Welsh Assembly Member for the constituency of Llanelli. She narrowly beat Helen Mary Jones of Plaid Cymru at the 2003 Assembly election with a majority of 21. Helen Mary Jones defeated her in the 2007 election...

Labour
Wales Labour Party
Welsh Labour is the part of the United Kingdom Labour Party that operates in Wales. Labour is the largest and most successful political party in modern Welsh politics, having won the largest share of the vote at every UK General Election since 1922, every Welsh Assembly election since 1999, and...

2007
National Assembly for Wales election, 2007
The 2007 National Assembly election was held on Thursday 3 May 2007 to elect members to the National Assembly for Wales. It was the third general election. On the same day local elections in England and Scotland, and the Scottish Parliament election took place...

Helen Mary Jones
Helen Mary Jones
Helen Mary Jones is a Plaid Cymru politician, who was a member of the National Assembly for Wales from 1999 to 2011.-Background:...

Plaid Cymru
Plaid Cymru
' is a political party in Wales. It advocates the establishment of an independent Welsh state within the European Union. was formed in 1925 and won its first seat in 1966...

2011
National Assembly for Wales election, 2011
The National Assembly for Wales election 2011 was the most recent election for the National Assembly. The poll was held on Thursday, 5 May 2011 and decided the incumbency for all the assembly's seats...

Keith Davies Labour
Wales Labour Party
Welsh Labour is the part of the United Kingdom Labour Party that operates in Wales. Labour is the largest and most successful political party in modern Welsh politics, having won the largest share of the vote at every UK General Election since 1922, every Welsh Assembly election since 1999, and...


Results

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