1999 Welsh Conservatives leadership election

1999 Welsh Conservatives leadership election
All nine members of the Welsh Conservative Group in the National Assembly for Wales; Five votes needed to win
Leader before election; Nick Bourne (pro tempore);; previously Rod Richards;	Elected Leader ; Nick Bourne;

The 1999 Welsh Conservatives leadership election was held in August 1999 to elect the leader of the Welsh Conservative Group in the National Assembly for Wales. The election was triggered by the resignation of Rod Richards as leader on 10 August. Richards, seen as belonging to the more radical wing of the party, had temporarily stood down from the leadership on 5 August after he was arrested and charged with causing grievous bodily harm, which he was later cleared of in 2000. He appointed David TC Davies, seen as his protégé, to act as leader while he defended himself from the charge without consulting the other, more moderate members of the group who favoured Nick Bourne or someone else for the acting leadership instead; Bourne had lost the previous leadership election to Richards in 1998, leading to a strained relationship between them, and was seen as belonging to party's more moderate wing. At a meeting of senior party figures and members of the group on 10 October, Richards appointment of Davies was overruled in response to his criminal charge, with Bourne elected as the new acting leader, prompting Richards' resignation. Conservative Central Office called the leadership election after his resignation, opening the nominations process after Bourne's nomination for the leadership was put forward on 11 August. Bourne was considered the favourite to win, with the contest seen as a formality to install him as the official leader of the Welsh Conservative Group. On 18 August, he was elected unopposed as the new leader of the Welsh Conservative Group in the National Assembly for Wales as the only candidate nominated for the leadership by group members.

Under Bourne's leadership, the Welsh Conservative Party changed its strategy and moved toward supporting devolution and moderating its policy platform on other issues such as healthcare and education. This marked a significant change in the party's strategy from Richards' leadership, when the party emphasised its British identity and took on a more radical, oppositional approach to devolution. The leadership contest and its aftermath led to a lasting enmity between Bourne and Richards, who opposed the new direction of the party under the former's leadership and accused most of the Welsh Conservative Group of having taken part in a conspiracy to remove him as leader. This enmity caused a factional split in the Welsh Conservative Group between those who supported Bourne and the more Eurosceptic AMs in the group which spilled over into the 2001 UK Conservative Party leadership election, with Bourne's faction supporting the more pro-European candidate Kenneth Clarke and the other faction supporting the more Eurosceptic candidate Iain Duncan Smith. The next Welsh Conservatives leadership election was held in 2011 after Bourne lost his seat in the 2011 assembly election. Andrew RT Davies was elected to succeed him as leader and would go on to continue Bourne's strategy of making the Welsh party more supportive of devolution while also taking on a more populist approach.
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