There’s been a lot of handwringing about the emphasis Plaid Cymru placed on ‘voting tactically’ during the recent Senedd election campaign. Supporters of parties who might have benefited from votes that were given instead to Plaid Cymru have suggested it was disingenuous, even wilfully misleading, to claim that in a proportional voting system, anything other than simply backing your preferred party is worth voters’ consideration.
In the UK, where the first-past-the-post system dominates electoral psychology, voters are accustomed to focusing on doing whatever it takes to prevent their least favoured party from winning, rather than voting positively. In proportional elections, however, this is not necessary. Or so goes the claim.
But we need to take care to clarify what is actually meant by ‘tactical voting’, and how the structure of the Senedd, its method for electing representatives, and – most importantly – the continued questioning of its right to exist, have necessitated parties to think strategically about how they should advise people to vote.
It is generally accepted that the Senedd’s electoral system is designed to facilitate cross-party collaboration, diverse representation that accounts for a broad range of voter preferences, and no single party dominating affairs. But that requires the system to be endorsed and legitimised by all the parties who comprise it. Reform UK patently aren’t doing this. On the contrary, their appeal is largely predicated on their ability to discredit the forms of governance in which they operate. Other parties can’t ignore this.
Reform’s capacity to disrupt the Senedd’s normal functioning is self-fulfilling: if they exist within it, it can’t operate as intended. Reform would have generated so much political capital had they won the popular vote but been prevented from forming a government due to a lack of willing coalition partners – an outcome predicted by many in the run-up to polling day. Of course, such a situation is perfectly legitimate – in fact, it’s precisely how a multi-party proportional system is supposed to operate – but this wouldn’t have mattered to Reform and its outriders, who would have worked to burn down the new government, and devolution with it, using this outcome as the kindling.
The singular goal of this election, for everyone invested in stopping Reform in its tracks, was to deny them this rhetorical power. This is what I believe Plaid Cymru meant – wittingly or not – when they claimed that ‘only we can beat Reform’.
Does this make the Green Party an electoral dead end in Wales? It’s hard to say. In many meaningful ways, they are more radical than Plaid Cymru. The new government will need to be kept tethered to their leftist pretences – both from within the party and without – as they face all sorts of pressures to compromise them once the realities of devolved governance take hold. But the Greens may need to wait on the sidelines, prepared to support Plaid Cymru and protect them from their antagonists wherever necessary. At least while this electoral system holds, or until Plaid Cymru become as embattled and dispirited with the task of administering devolution as their forerunner became.
(This article is also available to read on Substack)
Disposable Everything 