Why hasn’t Wales elected a black, Asian, or ethnic minority woman into the Senedd?

Despite having one of the highest Asian and Black communities in the United Kingdom, Wales has not elected a single Black, Asian, or ethnic minority woman into the Senedd.

In 2021, this is simply inexcusable, especially after the events in June 2020 which shone a light on the systemic racism in our society when a 46-yr old African American man was murdered in Minneapolis on May 25th, 2020 by a policeman which sparked worldwide protests. Ironically, America got its first Asian American and African American Vice President in the same year.

According to the census in 2011, Asian British constitute 6.9 percent of the overall population in the United Kingdom i.e., 4.3 million There has been an increase demographically from 4.4 percent share of the UK population in 2001.

Black residents constituted around three percent of the United Kingdom's population in 2011. Further, this increased to just over 1.9 million in 2011 i.e., two percent of the population. 97% of Black Britons live in England.

Wales is a country that is a part of the countries in the United Kingdom with a population of over 3.1 million. With fewer than 10 days to go for the elections, a lot is going on regarding the diversity of this year’s candidates.

Data from public affairs agency Deryn has found that just 34% of women candidates for May’s Senedd election are in “winnable” seats which is a major setback for the government.

The data shows that there are 14 candidates from an ethnic minority background. The Welsh Conservative, Plaid Cymru, and Welsh Liberal Democrats have all two candidates each and Welsh Labour has eight candidates.

There has been a good gender balance in the Senedd due to positive actions taken by Welsh Labour, with all-women shortlists. Currently, there are some LGBT+ members too, however, the Senedd needs to make some progress in terms of diversity.

Wales came close to electing an ethnic minority woman into the Senedd in 2011, with Mari Rees as the Labour candidate for Mid and West Wales before she died of cancer. It has been a decade since she died, there has not been another black, Asian, or ethnic minority woman candidate who has elected to the Senedd.

One of many barriers faced by ethnic minority women is the abuse that they face on social media which puts prospective candidates off standing. Almost 41% of the abusive tweets were directed to the ethnic minority MPs in the 2017 general election was found out by a study by Amnesty.

Omolegho Ifabua is a British-African journalism student at Cardiff University felt its upsetting that there is no one out there representing any ethnic minority. She said:” I did politics in A-levels where we discussed the ethnic minority groups in general. Some people argued that the minority groups’ thoughts are being represented by themselves, but it is not the same as someone physically being present from your own ethnic group who can relate to the kind of experiences that we go through daily.

“Black people have been stereotyped because sometimes we are hesitant to go into politics where our arguments are often dismissed as a black person is just acting out or being irrational.

Maybe a lack of understanding about Black culture is the reason why we do not have anyone representing us in the Senedd even today. I hope we improve in terms of diversity and let more diverse people represent us.”

This year’s Senedd should necessarily take the first step to ensure that there is a pipeline of diverse candidates for future candidates. Diversity in politics ensures that our democracy represents the community it serves.