Draft:1999–2000 Welsh political crisis

From October 1999 to October 2000, the National Assembly for Wales under the Labour administrations of Alun Michael and Rhodri Morgan faced a political and constitutional crisis.

Return to stability
Later in the evening after Michael's resignation, the cabinet met and unanimously voted under the assembly's standing orders to appoint Morgan as the acting first secretary and its acting chair. Michael did not attend the meeting. Labour's Welsh executive committee also confirmed Morgan as the new leader of the Labour Party in Wales in an uncontested leadership election on 11 February. On 15 February, Morgan was nominated unopposed as the new first secretary of Wales.

Instability returned to the assembly for a short period in early and mid 2001 when German refused to resign after he was investigated by the police following accusations that he had misused his expenses earlier in his career, claims which he was cleared of in 2002. German did however resign later that year in June, pending the outcome of the investigation, and stability returned to the asssembly.

Legacy
The motion of no confidence in Alun Michael was the first and only time a first secretary or first minister of Wales had lost such a vote until 2024, when First Minister Vaughan Gething lost a motion of no confidence in the Senedd on his 77th day in office. Unlike the motion against Michael, this motion was non-binding under the standing orders of the Senedd, so Gething decided not to resign and remained in office after he lost the vote. Michael's 273 days in office made him the shortest-serving first minister in Welsh history until the resignation of Gething amid a political and government crisis July 2024, and also made him the shortest-serving devolved leader in the United Kingdom until the resignation of Northern Ireland's first minister Paul Givan on his 232nd day in office in 2022.