Labour looks certain to retain power in Wales but suffered the bitter blow of losing one of its heartland valleys seats.
Major figures in Wales Labour, including the leader, Carwyn Jones, and former Welsh secretary Lord Peter Hain said the campaign had been hindered by the troubles of the national party.
As expected, Ukip won its first seats at the assembly with former Conservatives MPs Neil Hamilton and Mark Reckless among those who will take up seats on Cardiff Bay. Reckless said the party would be constructive but not part of a “cosy consensus”.
It was a bad election for the Tories, who failed to win seats they believed were in their grasp, while the Lib Dems may be left with just a single seat at the Senedd, that of their leader, Kirsty Williams.
Leanne Wood, the leader of the Welsh nationalists, Plaid Cymru, achieved the shock of the night when she won the Rhondda constituency seat from Labour stalwart and a minister in the last administration, Leighton Andrews. Plaid Cymru is likely to end up as the second biggest party.
In her acceptance speech, Wood said: “A new dawn has broken over these Rhondda valleys. It is too early to tell whether a new political dawn will break over the entire nation.”
But with a handful of results outstanding, it looked as if Labour would end up with 29 of the 60 seats – one down on the last assembly. In the final days of the assembly, Jones had signalled that Labour might govern alongside Plaid or the Lib Dems if necessary. But being so close to the 30 mark, Labour will be tempted to go it alone.
Jones said on Friday: “I’m sure there will be a lot of thought given to what the future looks like over the weekend. What’s important is to get a government in place that’s stable, especially with the steel crisis we face. We’ll have to see what happens in the next 24 hours and beyond.”
Asked about the divisions within Labour on the UK level and the row over antisemitism, Jones said: “It’s not helped. I’m not going to pretend otherwise. The lesson is that it’s really important for politicians in London not to say things that are not helpful to colleagues in the UK.”
There will be much soul-searching over the loss of the Rhondda seat and the narrowness of the party’s victory in nearby Blaenau Gwent, where a 9,000 majority melted away to 650.
Jones described the Rhondda result as a “huge disappointment” and admitted he did not know what went wrong. “It’s not something we saw coming. At this stage it’s not clear,” he said.
Hain said: “You would have expected us to be doing better in our heartland seats. There are questions for UK Labour.”
The defeated Andrews said problems within the UK party were having an impact on Wales. “You can’t mobilise voters at a local level if the party is divided at a UK level,” he said. “There are lessons to be learned.”
But there were some encouraging results for Labour. In Cardiff Central, Jenny Rathbone fought off a spirited charge by the Lib Dems. Julie Morgan, wife of former first minister and Welsh Labour leader Rhodri, clung on to Cardiff North with a decent majority of 3,667.
The Ukip UK leader, Nigel Farage, hailed a “breakthrough night” for the party and joked that the money he had spent on the Severn Bridge tolls (which Ukip wants to scrap) had paid off. “I’ve been going back and forth to Wales paying those ridiculous tolls, looks like it’ll be worth it,” he said.
