Llewelyn Pritchard
Kit PetersHOW WALES VOTES: Swansea MS Mike Hedges says new Senedd election system “does not work” — and “any system is better than the one we used”
Mike Hedges, the Labour MS for Gŵyr Abertawe — the constituency covering Swansea and Gower — has called for an open public discussion on the way Wales elects its Senedd Members, saying the new voting system “does not work.”
The May 2026 election was the first held under Wales’s reformed electoral system, which expanded the Senedd from 60 to 96 Members and introduced a fully proportional model based on 16 constituencies, each electing six Members from closed party lists.
Hedges, who was re-elected in Gŵyr Abertawe, says the system failed on its own terms.
“The new system does not work — it was meant to be proportional but it was not,” he said. “The electorate generally did not understand it.”
His central concern is tactical voting. Hedges argues the election effectively became a two-party contest between Plaid Cymru and Reform UK, and that this squeezed the vote going to everyone else.
“We did not have tactical voting — we had voters choosing between two parties, which depressed the votes of the other parties,” he said. “Those who thought they were voting tactically were actually not voting tactically. It did not work in five of the sixteen seats.”
He believes the effect was decisive in his own constituency, where he says fewer than 2,000 votes determined the final seat.
“Take 2,000 off one party and add it to another,” he said, expressing confidence in the figure. He argued that if Reform votes in the constituency had instead gone to the Conservatives, it would have produced a Conservative seat.
The criticism is notable coming from a Member elected under the very system he is attacking. Hedges took one of the six Gŵyr Abertawe seats, while Plaid Cymru took three and Reform UK two, as Labour‘s vote share across Wales fell to third behind both parties.
On the solution, Hedges is clear that change is needed — but stops short of backing the alternative favoured by the new Plaid Cymru government.
Asked whether he would support a move to the Single Transferable Vote — which Plaid committed in its 2026 manifesto to pursuing cross-party support for — he said he was open to reform but not to that particular model.
“We need an open discussion on the size of the Senedd and voting system,” he said. “I do not like STV, but any system is better than the one we used in the last election.”
It places him in unusual agreement with the Plaid government on the principle that the system should be reviewed, even as he rejects their preferred fix.
As a more immediate practical step, Hedges argues that better information would help voters navigate the system as it stands. “The most important thing next time is constituency polls,” he said — suggesting that seat-by-seat polling would give voters a clearer picture of the real contest in their area, rather than relying on national trends.
The new system was introduced through the Senedd Cymru (Members and Elections) Act 2024, passed by the previous Labour Welsh Government. Supporters argued the closed-list proportional model would produce a chamber that more accurately reflected how people voted, and that the larger Senedd would improve scrutiny of Welsh laws.
Critics — now apparently including some within Labour’s own ranks — have questioned the closed-list element, which means voters choose a party rather than ranking individual candidates, and whether the public was given enough information to understand how it worked.
Whether Hedges’s call for a review gains traction may rest with the Plaid Cymru government, which has its own manifesto commitment to explore electoral reform — albeit by a different route to the one the Swansea MS would choose.
Related stories from Swansea Bay News
Mike Hedges warns Wales could face another election as Labour counts the cost of historic defeat
The Swansea MS reflects on Labour’s worst-ever Senedd result in the immediate aftermath of the May election.
Plaid Cymru largest party, Reform UK historic breakthrough, Welsh Labour reduced to nine seats: the new political map of Wales
How the first election under the new voting system reshaped the Senedd.
Plaid Cymru top the poll in Gŵyr Abertawe as Reform UK and Labour also take seats
The full Gŵyr Abertawe result, where Mike Hedges held on for Welsh Labour.
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