Political Career
He was elected as Labour Party Member of Parliament for the Wrexham Westminster constituency in 1983 and served as a party spokesman on Treasury matters, although he was not offered a government post in 1997.
As a supporter of devolution he chose to move to the National Assembly for Wales in 1999, and stood down from the UK Parliament in 2001. In the Assembly he became increasingly known as a maverick. In 2000 he was elected as Deputy Presiding Officer against the candidate preferred by the Labour leadership. This move, and his frequent criticisms of the Labour-led Wrexham County Borough led to his deselection as the Labour Party's candidate for the National Assembly elections of 1 May 2003.
He then stood as a candidate for the John Marek Independent Party and defeated the official Labour Party candidate, Lesley Griffiths, by 973 votes. Later that year he formed a new political party called 'Forward Wales' (Welsh: Cymru Ymlaen).
He ran for re-election in the 2007 Welsh Assembly election, but was defeated by Labour's Lesley Griffiths by 1,250 votes, thanks to a swing to the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, and UKIP.
On 29 March 2010, Marek joined the Conservative Party. and was later confirmed as the party's candidate for the 2011 Welsh Assembly election
Read more about this topic: John Marek
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