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Title : Local government elections 2017
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Local government elections 2017
As the dust settles on yesterday's vote, it's time for a few reflections.The election saw Plaid Cymru turn in its best ever performance in Carmarthenshire, and the party came within a whisker (2 seats) of winning an overall majority. The Independents continued their long-term decline, and will now be a junior partner in a new coalition with just 3 out of the 10 seats on the Executive Board.
As always, the Independents are a mixed bag, but without Pam Palmer and Meryl the relationship will begin on a new footing under the leadership of Mair Stephens.
Outside Llanelli, Labour is now an endangered species. It has just one outlier in Carmarthen, and is down to just four in its former bastions in the Amman and Gwendraeth valleys where personal loyalties count for as least as much as politics.
Llanelli and the surrounding communities are now home to 17 of the Labour group's 22 members, and that will have some interesting consequences.
The scattered fragments of the Labour Party outside Llanelli are in no position to challenge the direction the group takes, and inside Llanelli the hardliners have strengthened their hand. The nepotism, clientelism and bullying which characterise the party in Llanelli will continue to flourish, creating all the right conditions for corruption. They will see their success in fending off the challenge from Plaid as a vindication of their tactics and policies, and the moderates in their midst will be left feeling distinctly uncomfortable.
Theresa May's decision to call a snap general election almost certainly helped Labour by diverting voters' attention from local issues and the state of Labour in Llanelli to what the mainstream media always portray as a two horse race between the Tories and Labour in the UK.
But Llanelli Labour is also well organised, and another significant factor is likely to have been the growing popularity of postal voting. Labour is understood to have done particularly well in the postal vote.
On the face of it, postal voting is a good thing. It helps increase turnout and participation in elections, and that certainly helps Labour which often struggles to get its vote out.
But the system is also open to manipulation, especially among what is sometimes termed the "donkey vote". Helping people to register for a postal vote, popping round to remind them to put a cross in the right place and offering to walk the envelope to the nearest postbox are all perfectly legal, and it can yield a healthy crop of votes for even the most dire candidates.
That Labour is not impregnable is clear from what has happened in the Carmarthen East and Dinefwr constituency. As recently as 2015 CE&D was one of Labour's top target seats, and they lost by a mile. This time they could even be pushed into third place, something that was unthinkable a few years ago.
In Llanelli, Tegwen Devichand's defeat at the hands of Rob Evans Paramedic, the Independent candidate, shows that Labour is vulnerable even in its last remaining bastion. Rob, who is a big personality, fought a very energetic one-man campaign against a well-oiled and powerful machine, and David beat Goliath.
Critics of Plaid Cymru often contrast the party's failure to break through with the success of the SNP, but Carmarthenshire shows, as it has shown before, that decline and decay under the dead hand of Labour does not have to be our fate.
The SNP swept all before it in the general election in 2015, but it was only last week that the party finally broke Labour's grip on Glasgow.
Mari Arthur is about to give Labour the fight of its life in Llanelli.
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