Short and Bitter

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Plagued by scandals, Wales’ elected First Minister Vaughan Gething said this week he would be stepping down, less than four months after he became the first Black individual to lead a European country, the BBC reported.

Controversies over his campaign’s funding and the sacking of a minister had made Gething’s tenure uneasy. He was finally pushed toward the exit door on Tuesday when four cabinet members quit in protest of his leadership and asked him to resign.

“My integrity matters. I have not compromised it,” Gething said as he denied wrongdoing, adding that he regretted that “the burden of proof is no longer an important commodity in the language of our politics.”

Appointed in March, the first minister almost immediately faced outcry from all sides of the aisle over a $260,000 donation he took when he ran for the leadership of the Welsh Labour Party. The donation had come from a company whose owner had been convicted of environmental offenses.

In May, he fired a minister after she allegedly leaked text messages to the press, which she denied.

The scandals led Plaid Cymru – a left-leaning party that advocates for Welsh independence from the United Kingdom – to end a cooperation deal with Labour, leaving Gething’s administration one seat short of an absolute majority in the Senedd, Wales’ devolved parliament.

Gething then lost a non-binding no-confidence vote, exasperating his governing partners.

He said his party would agree on a new leader by the fall.

“Labour has put party interests ahead of the interests of the nation for too long,” said Plaid Cymru’s leader Rhun ap Iorwerth, who instead called for a snap election.

But for the election to be held, two-thirds of the Senedd must agree to dissolve the assembly. The opposition currently holds exactly one half.