Great town hall race is under way

By Guto Thomas
BBC Wales political correspondent

More than 3,000 candidates hope to be first to cross the finishing line

Voters in Wales are facing major choices on 1 May.

Whether to register to vote; whether to use that vote; which party or candidates to support.

And perhaps most importantly, which party or combination of parties will end up in control of each of Wales' 22 local authorities?

With the full list of candidates published, the realities of this choice became apparent, with a grand total of some 3,260 candidates to choose from.

If this local election race were simply about the total number of candidates, then Labour would win a first-past-the-post contest with ease with its 877 candidates.

That compares to 519 from Plaid Cymru, 516 Conservatives, 437 Liberal Democrats, 718 Independents and almost 200 other candidates from smaller parties too.

But of course this contest is much more complicated - with different battles and different dynamics at play for the 1,264 seats in each of the 882 wards at stake across Wales.

The fate of councils across Wales will be decided on 1 May

And that is not counting many more candidates in the smaller town and county councils in many areas.

Inevitably, however, the 22 large county councils are the focus of this campaign. As the battle began, Labour could claim control of only seven - with another nine across Wales under no overall control.

One of the biggest questions that will be answered on 2 May is whether the trend towards no overall control will continue, or whether Labour can win back some of its lost political territory.

But the full list of candidates has thrown up a number of interesting facts, worthy of inclusion in any political pub quiz.

University Challenge

Both the Liberal Democrats and the Welsh Conservatives say they are fielding 18-year-old candidates for the first time - in Conwy and Cardiff respectively - while Plaid Cymru's youngest is thought to be aged just 20.

The Liberal Democrats can also lay claim to a candidate who was a winner on the BBC's University Challenge in 2006 for Manchester University.

And Plaid is doing everything it can to promote one of its candidates in the valleys, who won five caps for Wales in the early 1990s.

There are at least 14 examples of husbands and wives both standing for election - although in one of these cases, the couple (one of whom is a former secretary of state for Wales), will be wearing different political colours, as they face voters in Caerphilly.

There are also plenty of examples of different generations within families, all canvassing for your votes - including one Conservative family in Cardiff, who will send three generations into the political battleground, in three different wards across the capital.

Until election day arrives, there are currently seven Assembly Members who are also county councillors - with just one wishing to continue with this dual mandate for the next four years.

Five other AMs have partners who are county councillors, and there is at least one former assembly government special adviser who's hoping to return to the political charge at the local level for Labour.

If you think you know some of these answers and can identify the candidates, then you could be invited to play a part in BBC Wales' election coverage.

E-mail your answers to [e-mail], or send them on a postcard to Welsh Local Election 2008, BBC Wales political unit, Broadcasting House, Llandaff, Cardiff, CF5 2YQ.