The 2018 Welsh Labour Party leadership election took place between 9 November and 6 December 2018 to elect a successor to Carwyn Jones as leader of the Welsh Labour Party.
Carwyn Jones, who had led Welsh Labour since 2009, announced his intention to resign at the Welsh Labour conference in Llandudno in April 2018. He stated that he would stand down in autumn 2018, and that he would continue to lead the party until then.
Procedure
On 21 April 2018, at the Welsh Labour conference, Carwyn Jones announced that he would retire as First Minister in the autumn. The conference considered whether to change the voting system for electing a party leader and decided to set up a democracy review, which would report back after Jones had retired. However, two days later, pressure began to build for a special conference to address the issue more quickly and to consider changing the voting system from an electoral college to one member one vote. Four trade unions—GMB, Unison, Usdaw and the CWU—protested about this, supporting the continuation of an electoral college, and their position was endorsed by Vaughan Gething. In May and June 2018, Drakeford and Morgan pushed for the holding of such a party conference. It was reported that the supporters of Drakeford believed the existing system favoured Gething. At the end of May, Carwyn Jones himself asked Lord Murphy to carry out an expedited democracy review and to consult on changes in advance of a special conference. At the end of June, Drakeford came out in support of one member, one vote. In mid June, Eluned Morgan announced that she would be standing as leader. In July, Unite broke ranks with the other big unions by coming out in support of a change to one member, one vote.
The special conference took place on 15 September and decided that the system to be used for the forthcoming election would be by one member, one vote, with the votes of individual party members and members of the affiliated organisations carrying the same weight.
Ballot papers were sent out to members on 9 November by email, or by post for those who did not have an email address. The voters had until 3 December to return their ballots. A preferential voting system was used.
The result of the election was announced on 6 December, with Carwyn Jones scheduled to formally resign as First Minister of Wales the following week. His resignation would trigger a vote of all Assembly Members to elect his successor as First Minister.
Welsh Liberal Democrat AM Kirsty Williams had joined Welsh Labour in government following the 2016 assembly election as Cabinet Secretary for Education. She said that she would stay on in post if the same terms were available as those agreed with Carwyn Jones when she joined the government.
Former Plaid Cymru AM Dafydd Elis-Thomas left his party in October 2016 to support the Labour-led government, and joined the government as Minister for Culture, Tourism and Sport in November 2017. This gave the government side a majority of 31 out of the 60 Assembly Members.
All three candidates in the election indicated they would wish for Williams and Elis-Thomas to remain in the government.
Timetable
27 September – Nominations opened
3 October – Nominations closed
9 November – Ballot papers were despatched
6 December – Winner announced
11 December – Formal resignation of First Minister
12 December – Vote in the Senedd to elect a new First Minister
Nominations
In order to become a candidate, individuals required 20% of current Labour AMs to nominate them. This equated to six AMs, including themselves.
Finance Secretary Mark Drakeford was the first candidate to declare he was standing, shortly after Jones announced he would be stepping down. He immediately secured the support of seven other AMs, ensuring he would be on the ballot. A further nine AMs later announced they were nominating Drakeford, giving him the support of a majority of the Labour Group. He also had the backing of Momentum, a group supporting the national leader Jeremy Corbyn, and had been described as both a "Corbynist" and a pragmatist. Drakeford started the election campaigning as the favourite, although the academic Roger Awan-Scully suggested he might not remain the frontrunner.
Health Secretary Vaughan Gething announced his candidacy on 25 May, with the support of four members of the Assembly, putting himself one nomination short of becoming a candidate. He later achieved the required number of endorsements when Ann Jones announced she would nominate him on 10 August.