Welsh Liberal Democrats set their sights on winning a second seat in South Wales West

7.35.39pm BST (GMT +0100) Fri 4th Aug 2006

Welsh Liberal Democrats have declared that they can take a second seat in the South Wales West region at the Assembly elections in May and that they will oust a sitting AM in the process.

The party's confidence is based on their strong showing at the General Election in 2005. In that contest they scored their best result ever in the marginal seat of Swansea West, coming second with 29% of the vote and just over 4,000 votes adrift of veteran MP, Alan Williams. Across the seven constituencies that make up the South Wales West region they out-polled all the other parties apart from Labour and came second in four of the seats.

If that result were to be repeated then they would take the fourth and final list seat off sitting Plaid Cymru Assembly Member, Dai Lloyd. If, however, the party were able to build on their result in Swansea West then they could well throw Enterprise Minister and potential future Labour Assembly Leader, Andrew Davies, out on his ear, whilst retaining their existing list seat, currently held by Peter Black.

"Welsh Liberal Democrats have not stopped working since the General Election," said Peter Black. "In fact we have stepped up our campaigning in all seven of the region's constituencies. What seems clear from both national trends and the last General Election result is that Plaid Cymru can only win one seat next time. That leaves their number two on the list, Dai Lloyd vulnerable. Quite clearly, the battle to win Dai Lloyd's seat is a straight fight between the Welsh Liberal Democrats and the Tories and the only way that the Conservatives can take it is if we win Swansea West off Labour."

"I am confident that I will be joined in the Assembly Chamber next May by either Swansea Councillor, Peter May, as the new AM for Swansea West or Bridgend Councillor Jackie Radford, as a second Welsh Liberal Democrat list member. The Conservative's Chris Smart and Plaid Cymru's, Dai Lloyd, will be also-rans,"