In an exciting day the people of Wales gave the Welsh Assembly Government an enthusiastic vote of approval. In addition to certain law-making powers with regard to matters to do Wales, those laws will not have to be sent to London to be scrutinized before they are passed.
All except one of the 22 Welsh authorities voted for the new powers – Monmouthshire was the only dissenting voice and that by only a few hundred votes.
63% of those who voted wanted the change with 36.5% voting against. This shows that Wales has become a far more confident nation compared to the very narrow majority of people who voted for devolution back in 1997.
The percentage of people who voted was 35%, which may appear low. However the debate suffered when the people who were running the “NO” campaign decided not to register their campaign.
This meant that no information leaflets were delivered to people's homes and there were no radio and television broadcasts as happens with elections. Since there was no official “NO” campaign, there was no funding for the “YES” campaign either and many people did feel that they were not well informed about what the referendum was about.
On the other hand, politicians saw the result as a sign that Welsh people were prepared to grapple with complex issues and were confident that Wales can move further along the road to even greater devolution.
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