BBC NEWS | VOTE 2003


CANDIDATE	PARTY	VOTES	%	+/-%
Leighton Andrews	LAB	14170	61.6	21.1
Geraint Davies	PC	6216	27.0	-21.7
Jeffrey Gregory	IND	909	4.0	4.0
Veronica Watkins	LD	680	3.0	-1.7
K T Rajan	UKIP	524	2.3	2.3
Paul Williams	CON	504	2.2	-0.6

	MAJORITY	7954	34.6
	TURNOUT	23213	46.0	-4.5

DESCRIPTION: Rhondda

Of all the shocks suffered by Labour in the first assembly elections, probably none was greater than Plaid Cymru�s victory in the Rhondda, a seat traditionally regarded as one of the party's very safest. Defeat here symbolised more than any other the problems affecting Welsh Labour at the time.It is likely that local issues played a large part in Labour�s difficulties, particularly the controversy over the local council�s role in managing the Nantygwyddon waste tip. On the same day as the assembly election, Plaid Cymru also gained control of Rhondda Cynon Taff Council from Labour. Much of the damage to Labour was done in the Rhondda part of the council area. Labour hopes these problems have been put behind it in a constituency where the party was viewed as an entrenched part of the areas working class, radical culture. It has had a Labour MP since 1910, and the party held on to the parliamentary seat in 2001 with a comfortable majority over Plaid.

The mines which made the word Rhondda synonymous with coal are now a distant memory, with the Rhondda Heritage Park tourist attraction as a reminder of the area�s industrial past�. Relatively high levels of unemployment and poverty remain. A high percentage of those living in the Rhondda were born in the area, and there has been rapid growth in the number of school children receiving Welsh-medium education.

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