Judgment day for Labour as Welsh polls open

Labour hopes to hold on to power in Wales today when voters go to the polls to elect 60 new Assembly members.

Warm sunny weather is forecast, raising the prospect of a bigger turnout than the 38% of Welsh voters who used their two ballot papers in 2003.

Welsh Labour leader Rhodri Morgan, who has run a minority administration since 2005, made a final appeal to the voters to keep him in charge yesterday.

With opinion polls predicting no overall majority, he could need a pact with another party to keep his job until 2009 when he plans to retire.

Mr Morgan said not voting for Labour would amount to voting for an alternative “without knowing what that alternative is”.

At his final campaign press conference in Cardiff, he said: “We are not talking about taking our cricket bats home or anything like that, but we are going flat out for an appeal to the people of Wales not to put at risk the achievements that we have made and to re-elect a Labour government.

“If the people of Wales decide they don’t want any more of me, they don’t even want two years more of me, that’s democracy. It’s an occupational hazard of being in this job.”

He added: “If the weather continues like this, the indications from the returns on the postal vote indicates there will be a rise (in turnout).”

The Assembly will return from the election with more law-making power and will be able to apply to Parliament for the right to pass its own legislation.

Party leaders say they have encountered less hostility towards devolution than in the first two Assembly elections.

The dominant issue has been the health service, with hospital shake-ups casting a shadow over the contest in crucial seats.

Bookies last night had Labour as a shoo-in to remain the largest party, but the race for second place was much closer.

Labour has been portraying the election as a straight fight with the Conservatives. It launched an eve-of-poll advert warning voters not to wake up on Friday “to find the Tories running our health service”.

But Plaid Cymru, which goes into the election as the main opposition party, has been buoyed by recent polls. This week it claimed it could unseat Labour as Wales’s biggest party.

Plaid leader Ieuan Wyn Jones yesterday set out what he would do in the first 100 days of government.

He said: “Our intention is to hit the ground running and make a difference from day one. Our first act in government will be to stop the current hospital reconfiguration programme.”

Tory Assembly leader Nick Bourne said he did not feel pressure to perform better under David Cameron than Iain Duncan Smith, but praised the Conservative leader for his “terrific support”.

“I don’t make predictions. But clearly, we’re going to win seats throughout Wales,” Mr Bourne said.

The Liberal Democrats’ Assembly leader Mike German – Rhodri Morgan’s coalition partner between 2000 and 2003 – said: “We are on target to continue our growth in all parts of Wales – and win more votes and more seats than ever before.