Politics
The Sketty Ward is the largest in the Swansea West Parliamentary/ Welsh Assembly Constituency, and is one of only two five member wards for the purposes of City and County of Swansea Elections. This single ward five member structure allows the electorate to vote for up to five candidates, and electors are free to either put all their votes behind one party or to split their vote between parties.
The three main UK-wide parties seem to have reasonable local infrastructures in the area, and have contested the vast majority of seats since the first elections to the City and County of Swansea authority in 1995. The Conservative Party, which only contested four out of five seats in 1999, is an exception. A defeated independent candidate in those elections then stood, and won, as an official Conservative candidate in a 2000 by-election. Plaid Cymru, whilst it has not contested every seat, contests every election. There have in the past been a small number of non-party candidates, and in the 2004 elections the Green Party also put up a full slate of five candidates.
The area has seen considerable electoral volatility, and there appears to be evidence of split ticket voting. Whilst party factors remain strong, there seems to be evidence of voters taking into account other factors, such as personality and perhaps geographic factors due to the size of the ward. In recent elections, (post 1995) whilst there is evidence of considerable voting shifts between parties, no party has ever had the igmony of its vote completely collapsing, and the area has seen some hotly contested local elections.
In 1995, the ward elected four councillors. This election was a "mid-term election" towards the end of the Conservative period in Government. Labour won three seats, and an Independent candidate one one. The Independent councillor later joined the Liberal Democrats. These elections were probably the worst for the Conservative Party in the area, and the best for Labour.
In 1999, the ward elected five councillors. This election was held the same day as the first elections to the National Assembly for Wales, and was set against a controversial backdrop concerning a Welsh Labour leadership election, and the Labour vote predictably suffered. The results were the most eclectic seen. The Conservatives won two seats, the Liberal Democrats also won two seats and Labour won one.
In 2000, there was a by-election caused by the death of the Labour Councillor. The seat was then won by the Conservatives. This election confirmed the previous year's re-emergence of the Conservatives, although of course this election took place on a lower turnout than the other elections.
In 2004, the ward again elected five councillors. These elections were set against the national backdrop of a controversial war in Iraq, and the local backdrop of the closure of Swansea Leisure Centre. These elections saw Labour lose control, and a coalition of Liberal Democrats, Conservatives, and independents take control of Swansea Council, the main local issue at the time was a planning issue concerning a proposed ASDA store in Derwen Fawr; however, there was little if any dispute between the parties on this matter. In Sketty, the Conservatives won two seats and the Liberal Democrats won three. In 2007, one of the two conservative councillors became an Independent when the Conservastive group left the ruling coalition. He joined the Liberal Democrats in 2008.
Read more about this topic: Sketty (electoral Ward)
Famous quotes containing the word politics:
“We are naïve and moralistic women. We are human beings. Who find politics a blight upon the human condition. And do not know how one copes with it except through politics.”
—Kate Millett (b. 1934)
“His talk was like a spring, which runs
With rapid change from rocks to roses:
It slipped from politics to puns,
It passed from Mahomet to Moses;
Beginning with the laws which keep
The planets in their radiant courses,
And ending with some precept deep
For dressing eels, or shoeing horses.”
—Winthrop Mackworth Praed (1802–1839)
“Of course, in the reality of history, the Machiavellian view which glorifies the principle of violence has been able to dominate. Not the compromising conciliatory politics of humaneness, not the Erasmian, but rather the politics of vested power which firmly exploits every opportunity, politics in the sense of the “Principe,” has determined the development of European history ever since.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)