South Wales East () is an electoral region of the

Senedd The Senedd (; ), officially known as the Welsh Parliament in English and () in Welsh, is the devolved, unicameral legislature of Wales. A democratically elected body, it makes laws for Wales, agrees certain taxes and scrutinises the Welsh Gov ...

, consisting of eight

constituencies An electoral district, also known as an election district, legislative district, voting district, constituency, riding, ward, division, or (election) precinct is a subdivision of a larger state (a country, administrative region, or other polity ...

. The region elects 12 members, eight directly elected constituency members and four additional members. The electoral region was first used in

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shoot ...

, when the National Assembly for Wales was created. Each constituency elects one

Member of the Senedd A Member of the Senedd (MS; plural: ''MSs''; cy, Aelodau o'r Senedd; , plural:) (AS)., group=la is a representative elected to the Senedd (Welsh Parliament; ). There are sixty members, with forty members chosen to represent individual Senedd ...

by the

first past the post In a first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP or FPP), formally called single-member plurality voting (SMP) when used in single-member districts or informally choose-one voting in contrast to ranked voting, or score voting, voters cast thei ...

electoral system, and the region as a whole elects four additional or top-up Members of the Senedd, to create a degree of

proportional representation Proportional representation (PR) refers to a type of electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to geographical (e.g. states, regions) and political divis ...

. The additional member seats are allocated from

closed list Closed list describes the variant of party-list systems where voters can effectively only vote for political parties as a whole; thus they have no influence on the party-supplied order in which party candidates are elected. If voters had some in ...

s by the

D'Hondt method The D'Hondt method, also called the Jefferson method or the greatest divisors method, is a method for allocating seats in parliaments among federal states, or in party-list proportional representation systems. It belongs to the class of highes ...

, with constituency results being taken into account in the allocation.

County boundaries

The region covers the whole of the

preserved county The preserved counties of Wales are the eight current areas used in Wales for the ceremonial purposes of Lord-lieutenant, lieutenancy and High Sheriff#England, Wales and Northern Ireland, shrievalty. They are based on the subdivisions of Wales, ...

of Gwent and part of the preserved county of

Mid Glamorgan , Government= Mid Glamorgan County Council , Status= Non-metropolitan county (1974–1996) Preserved county (1996–) , Start= 1974 , End= 1996 , Arms= ''Coat of arms of Mid ...

. The rest of Mid Glamorgan is mostly within the

South Wales Central South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþaz ...

electoral region and partly within the South Wales West region.

Electoral region profile

The region is one of contrasts; it includes the city of Newport, along with the town of

Caerphilly Caerphilly (, ; cy, Caerffili, ) is a town and community in Wales. It is situated at the southern end of the Rhymney Valley. It is north of Cardiff and northwest of Newport. It is the largest town in Caerphilly County Borough, and lies wi ...

. It also takes in the working-class former iron town of

Merthyr Tydfil Merthyr Tydfil (; cy, Merthyr Tudful ) is the main town in Merthyr Tydfil County Borough, Wales, administered by Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council. It is about north of Cardiff. Often called just Merthyr, it is said to be named after T ...

, one of the most deprived towns in the UK, but also rural

Monmouthshire Monmouthshire ( cy, Sir Fynwy) is a county in the south-east of Wales. The name derives from the historic county of the same name; the modern county covers the eastern three-fifths of the historic county. The largest town is Abergavenny, wit ...

, one of the most affluent parts of Wales.

Constituencies

The eight constituencies have the names and boundaries of constituencies of the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...

of the

Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative suprem ...

(

Westminster Westminster is an area of Central London, part of the wider City of Westminster. The area, which extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street, has many visitor attractions and historic landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, B ...

Assembly members and Members of the Senedd

Constituency AMs and MSs

Regional list AMs and MSs

N.B. This table is for presentation purposes only

2021 Senedd election

2021 Senedd election additional members

Regional MSs elected 2021

2016 Welsh Assembly election additional members

Regional AMs elected 2016

2011 Welsh Assembly election additional members

Regional AMs elected 2011

2007 Welsh Assembly election additional members

On 8 December 2009, Mohammad Asghar, Plaid Cymru's list member for South Wales East, defected to the Conservative Party. This gave Plaid one AM, and the Conservatives two.