Welsh Labour leadership: Jones puts Morgan into contest

Image source, NATIONAL ASSEMBLY

Image caption, Eluned Morgan joins Vaughan Gething and Mark Drakeford on the ballot paper

Outgoing Welsh Labour leader Carwyn Jones has nominated Eluned Morgan to join the race to replace him, to ensure the ballot is not an all-male affair.

It means Ms Morgan, minister for the Welsh language, has the support of the six Labour AMs she needs to run.

Health Secretary Vaughan Gething also has six nominations and Finance Secretary Mark Drakeford 17.

Nominations closed on Wednesday, ballot papers will go out on 9 November and the result announced on 6 December.

Mr Jones intends to resign as first minister, following his final question time with AMs in the Senedd, on 11 December.

He announced his intention to quit at the Welsh Labour conference in April.

He told last month's Labour conference it would be "utterly wrong in 2018, to have such a contest without a woman on the ballot paper" and "if necessary I will lend my nomination to make sure that happens".

Welsh Labour will use the one-member-one-vote system for the contest, like the one that elected Jeremy Corbyn, for the poll.

Previously it used an electoral college process for such contests, which split the votes three ways between members, unions and politicians.