New Welsh leader 'honored' to be Europe's first Black national leader
Vaughan Gething won the Welsh Labour Party leadership contest on Saturday, and is set to become the first Black leader of Wales’ semi-autonomous government.
Vaughan Gething won the Welsh Labour Party leadership contest on Saturday, and is set to become the first Black leader of Wales’ semi-autonomous government.
Gething, who is currently Welsh economy minister, narrowly beat Education Minister Jeremy Miles in a race to replace First Minister Mark Drakeford. Drakeford announced late last year he would step down once a replacement was chosen.
Gething, 50, won 51.7% of the votes cast by members of the party and affiliated trade unions, and Miles 48.3%.
Once he is confirmed next week by the Welsh parliament, the Senedd, where Labour is the largest party, Gething will become the fifth first minister since Wales’ national legislature was established in 1999.
Gething, son of a Welsh father and a Zambian mother, will be the first Black leader of a government in the U.K. — and, by some definitions, of any European country.
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