My first response when reading about Forward Wales’ plan to field both party and ‘independent’ candidates in the next Assembly elections was, “what took them so long?” The Electoral Commission appear to have now woken up to this, but really it is too late.
This is the real danger of the AMS system, not the “dual candidacy” bugbear which Labour have banned. Indeed, were it not for the fact that they would pay too high a political price for doing it, on paper it is Labour that would have the most to gain from playing this kind of game. That said, it has the most to gain from the status quo as well: if may struggle to get list candidates elected, but FPTP gives it such a disproportionate advantage in Wales, that hardly matters to them.
The only real solution is to have candidates elected under a single system. Hopefully this will be one more nail in the coffin of this system, but it won’t be surrendered without a fight, especially given that the Welsh Raj Peter Hain has already pledged to veto any attempt by the National Assembly to get its own house in order.