Sitting MP for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire, Nick Ainger, was returned to Westminster for a third successive term at last Thursday's General Election, albeit with a reduced majority.
Mr. Ainger, who was first elected to Parliament in 1992, mirrored his Labour colleagues' landslide victory in the General Election with 15,349 votes, although this was some 5,607 down on his 1997 success.
However, his 41.6 per cent share of the poll was still enough to give him a 4,538 vote advantage over nearest rival, Conservative candidate Robert Wilson, who polled 10,811.
He, too, had a reduced share in comparision to the number of votes cast locally for the Tories in 1997.
Carmathen Mayor, Llyr Hughes Griffiths, who stood for Plaid Cymru, was beaten into third place, with 6,893, although he was the only main party candidate to make ground, picking up nearly 1,500 votes more than his party's local poll at the last election.
Fourth place went to Liberal Democrat candidate William Jeremy who polled 3,248; Ian Phillips, of the UK Independence Party, picked up a 537 -vote share of the poll and Nick Turner, of the Direct Customer Service Party, gained 78 votes.
As elsewhere around the country, numbers at the polling booths were lower than in previous elections. However, while turnout was 11.5 percentage points down on 1997, the constituency was higher than the national average at 65 per cent.