AS DWYFOR and Meirionnydd gets ready to go to the polls tomorrow (Thursday) for the Welsh Assembly Elections, the Cambrian News asked each of the constituency candidates to tell us in 200 words why you should vote for them.

Stephen Churchman Welsh Liberal Democrats

Gwynedd has been my home for nearly seventeen years, it is where my wife and I raised our family. We live here because we love Wales, in particular this corner of Wales. It is for this reason that I want to fight for the people of Wales, to defend services to improve services.

I am a life-long Liberal because I value Liberal philosophy, a rich tradition and values shared by many in Wales.

Liberalism is about creating level playing fields to enable the individual to achieve to the best of their abilities on equal terms. Liberalism therefore opposes privilege in favour of equality of choices and opportunity.

It means everyone having the same chances to achieve wealth, happiness and wellbeing. Nobody should be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity.

Therefore we aim to devolve power from Westminster to Cardiff and from Cardiff to County, Town and Community councils and oppose the centralisation of power that Labour is attempting to achieve.

In a Liberal society, the role of the state is to enable all people to achieve the ideals of equality, happiness and wealth and to enable anyone to contribute to their community and mould decisions that affect their lives.

Dafydd Elis-Thomas Plaid Cymru

Dwyfor Meirionnydd extends from Aberdyfi to Aberdaron on the northern Cardigan Bay Coast, and takes in most of both the Snowdonia National Park and the whole of the Llyn Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

Its main transport links are to the rail network along the Cambrian Coast Line west and south from Pwllheli through Porthmadog, Harlech, Abermaw/Barmouth and Tywyn to Machynlleth, and in the north from Blaenau Ffestiniog to Llandudno.

Traws Cymru main bus routes T2 follow the A470 north-south trunk road through Dolgellau to Bangor, and the T3 east through Bala to Wrexham. Improving connections is key to travel to work and to leisure both for those who live here and for those who love to share our wonderful environment.

Education and training through apprenticeships is key to a skilled future workforce for our essential farming, food and tourism industries, and the quality of our public services, including integrated health and social care for citizens of all ages.

Our natural resources and infrastructure continue to provide opportunities to develop low carbon energy in the Snowdonia Enterprise Zone and elsewhere.

Our unique environment can be sustained only through continuing private and public investment in local businesses, working together in partnership.

Neil Fairlamb Welsh Conservatives

Last year 6,550 of you in Dwyfor Meirionnydd voted for me in the General Election and the Conservative vote here showed a swing of just under 2% from Plaid Cymru.

This time Welsh Conservatives as the second party in the Assembly hope to overturn 17 years of tired Labour rule (propped up sometimes by Plaid and Lib Dems) and secure real change for Wales.

We have five key pledges.

A Welsh Conservative Government will:

Protect the NHS, guaranteeing more investment in our health

service each and every year

Create more jobs, by backing small businesses and improving

infrastructure

Deliver excellence in education, transforming teacher training

and directing more funds to the classroom

Provide security and dignity, setting a £400 weekly cap on care costs and protecting £100,000 of assets for those in residential care to pass on to their families.

Older people wanting to work will have the age cap of 16-24 for employer funding removed; all will have opportunities

Treble free childcare to 30 hours, ensuring affordable and accessible support for families.

Alice Hooker Stroud Green Party

I think we need to shake things up, and look for opportunities to build a better future for our communities.

Almost a quarter of people in Wales live in relative poverty – this hasn’t really changed over the last seventeen years of Labour Government.

Wages in lower-paid jobs haven’t gone up for decades. People move away for work.

Libraries and schools are being closed down. Environmental impacts like flooding show up a lack of action on climate change, and how short-sighted and under-prepared Welsh Government has been.

But it could be different.

We can create sustainable, decent jobs in renewables, by supporting local businesses, and insulating our homes. We can provide health and social care that fits communities’ needs, save local schools, and link our communities with better bus and train services. We should support those affected by climate change, and make sure we are prepared for the future.

As your Assembly Member for Dwyfor Meirionydd, or for the Mid and West Wales region – where I am also standing, and where the Wales Green Party have an excellent chance of winning our first seat – I will fight for all of these, for a better future for rural Wales.

Louise Hughes Independent

As a Gwynedd councillor since 2008 I am well aware of the social and economic problems facing the vast majority of people in Dwyfor Meirionnydd.

The lamentable lack of investment in the constituency has resulted in little opportunity for meaningful, well-paid employment.

This, coupled with house prices way beyond the means of anyone on local wages, has resulted in our young Welsh speaking people leaving our towns and villages in their droves to find work in Cardiff or over the border, and who can blame them?

This further diminishes our proud cultural heritage. We are in danger of becoming a playground for monied people from away, all well and good for them I suppose, but what about us, the people who live here?

It’s my firm belief that politics in Wales is far too Cardiff centric, the Welsh Assembly needs reminding that Wales goes further than Merthyr.

Dwyfor Meirionnydd needs a strong, local voice to ensure that we are heard down in Cardiff.

As your Independent AM I will cut through the morass and empty rhetoric of party politics to represent you with an open-minded, passionate and, most importantly, honest work ethic.

No flannel, no empty promises just a pledge to make sure we get a fair deal, whether it’s healthcare provision, education, frontline services or affordable housing.

Rest assured that, as your AM, my only priority is chware teg for you, and our communities.

Ian Donald Angus Macintyre Labour

THIS Welsh Labour government has fulfilled its promise.

The Welsh NHS is unsurpassed by any NHS in the UK (OECD Report).

No privatisation! No doctors’ strikes! Everyone working for the genuine living wage! Publicly owned, not-for-profit.

Best Wales GCSE results ever. College fees capped £5,500 below Tory England’s.

Growth up, employment up, unemployment down, kick-start funding creating 15,000 real jobs.

Agricultural wages up six per cent this year.

The Violence Against Women Act is law.

Therefore, we can trust its 2016-21 pledges: Lower taxes for all small businesses.

Free child care for working parents. Special funding for costly rare diseases. 100,000 genuine, new apprenticeships. £100million to raise school standards further. Residential care contributions capital limit doubled.

The left suffers because reactionary Plaid ignores us in Gwynedd Council.

In the Senedd, Plaid voices present as hostile old anti-Labour, anti-socialist warriors.

Dwyfor Meirionnydd has had no effective voice. I would campaign as a member of the Corbyn-Carwyn Labour Party, highly sceptical of rich establishments and on the side of the oppressed, against oppressors of all communities, not as a lost ineffectual junior partner in a coalition party.

Frank Wykes UKIP

A Cornishman, I was a UKIP parliamentary candidate for Meirionnydd & Dwyfor Meirionnydd 2005 & 10.

For many years I worked for Dtp & MIRA as a senior vehicle safety research engineer, indirectly helping to save hundreds of lives on Welsh roads.

Although my main expertise is with transport & energy, I am very aware of the problems of jobs, health, tourism, EU regulations, immigrants, and communications in the constituency.

I am against land based wind turbines especially those built using Chinese steel.

But I do favour water driven renewable energy, whether it is hydroelectric or tidal, on the grounds of efficiency & lower costs to the consumer.