Thursday's election in Wales will be like no other. 

Since 1999 – when the Labour government in Westminster decentralized powers to the Senedd assembly in Cardiff on policies for health, education, the environment and local governance – Labour has won each Welsh election, and led each Welsh government.

That's part of a larger picture in which Labour has come first in Wales in each general election since 1922. 

But all that could be about to change. With the UK's two main traditional parties – Labour and Conservative – increasingly unpopular, other parties could form the next Welsh government. 

What's more, if there's a large shift of votes to Reform UK, the Greens and the pro-independence Plaid Cymru (Party of Wales), there could be political implications for the leadership of UK prime minister Keir Starmer.

Whether the new Senedd is dominated by right-wing Reform or left-leaning Plaid Cymru, it would represent a radical shift from the traditional Labour leadership that has always relied on a supposedly close alliance with the UK Labour party in Westminster.

"In this election it's very unlikely that Labour will form the government after May 8th," says Laura McAllister, a professor of Public Policy and the Governance of Wales at the Wales Governance Centre at Cardiff University.

"And that's what makes it such a seismic and potentially historic election, because in all of democratic times, we've had Labour governments. Labour hasn't lost an election in Wales for 104 years."

A profoundly different election 

It is already a profoundly different election for Wales: its first time using a new system of proportional representation.  

Under the d'Hondt system, voters will choose to support a political party – rather than individual politicians representing a specific constituency, as happens in the Westminster parliament's first-past-the-post system.

Furthermore, the previous delineation of 40 constituencies and five regions has been reshuffled into 16 new 'super-constituencies'. Each of these will be represented by six members, leading to an overall increase of Senedd members from 60 to 96 – intended to provide more scrutiny and debate to underpin democracy and decision-making.

Wales's economy has been weaker than most other UK regions. Industry like coal and steel production, and the guarantee of jobs that went with them, disappeared decades ago from south Wales valleys.

In traditionally socialist areas, there's anger towards successive Labour and Conservative governments that have failed to improve lives in Wales.   

That feeds support for change, offered by smaller political parties like Reform UK. Their candidate in Blaenau Gwent Caerffili Rhymni constituency is Llŷr Powell.

"My family were Labour for years. We felt a full allegiance – it was a religion to vote Labour, that is broken after betrayal," Powell says. 

"This is just people expressing a democratic right and going to a party that reflects them more. It could be us. Some people say it's the Greens out there. Some are saying it's Plaid Cymru. I don't know, that's up to the individuals."

Last year, Reform – which has welcomed defections from former Labour and Conservative politicians, let alone voters – narrowly lost a by-election to Plaid Cymru. Voters in a shopping center in Blackwood in the Gwent valleys seem ready for a change.

"I'm a bit fed up with the current situation, with what we've got. We've got a pointless Prime Minister," an elderly man tells CGTN. 

Another retiree, a former clinical nurse, says, "If I was going to vote, I'd vote for Plaid Cymru – and the reason I'd vote for Plaid is because they care about Wales."

"I'm very much a working class background person," says a middle-aged man, "but focused on voting in a different way this time, just to drive through some change." 

"I think it'll be big changes – big, big changes," says a music shop owner. "And I think the main party, Labour, is going to lose out a lot."

Green revolution 

As in London and other English urban areas, the Green Party is also targeting more votes – and more elected representatives. Specifically, the Greens could take lots of the Labour vote.

Paul Rock, a candidate in the Caerdydd Ffynnon Taf constituency, is one of several Greens hopeful of doing well in the Welsh capital Cardiff. 

"I think society is changing," he tells CGTN. "I think we've been kind of sold this idea of kind of extreme of individualism, certainly since the days of [Margaret] Thatcher [UK Conservative Prime Minister 1979-1990]. 

"That hasn't worked for so many people in our society. I think there's no doubt as we talk to people that they feel let down by Labour, they feel a little bit betrayed," he continues. 

"We [Greens] have always had a broad manifesto, a broad range of policies – and this election just gives us the opportunity for people to know about that."

Different sorts of nationalism 

For months, opinion polls have suggested a two-horse race between Plaid Cymru and Reform. Both are nationalist parties: one Welsh, the other British/English. 

That could lead to political arguments and calls for more powers to be devolved to Wales from London – or the opposite, as Reform's Llŷr Powell argues.

"People losing faith in the democratic process completely – that's my worry," he says. "The ordinary man and woman having the vote – that is at risk if we don't deliver what we've set out. We've got a Prime Minister [Starmer] that got elected on a mandate for change, and the only thing he did was change the person living in Number 10 [Downing Street]. Nothing else has changed."

While Plaid Cymru's manifesto aims to unlock Wales' economic potential and deliver a "fairer, more ambitious future," the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats oppose Plaid's ambitions for an independent Wales. 

The Conservatives have created placards saying "Scrap the Senedd', with the suggestion they too are British nationalists who want to maintain the status quo.

These are vastly different visions for the future, stemming from this historic election. But for all the changes to the method of voting, Cardiff University's Laura McAllister doubts there will be a similar shift in the actual allocation of power. 

"I haven't got great confidence that a UK government will adjust its approach and policies to be able to manage intergovernmental relations with greater respect and a culture where the governments of Scotland and Wales are treated equally with the government of the UK," she says.

"It would require a real mindset shift by the UK government, which would be a new culture of respect and mutual esteem between the governments. And that simply doesn't exist."