The Welsh Assembly's deputy presiding officer, Dr John Marek, is to re-submit himself for selection as a candidate for next year's elections in an attempt to avert disciplinary action by the Labour Party.

The controversial former MP has already been selected by his constituency party in Wrexham to fight his seat, but voluntarily agreed to go through the process again.

His decision came ahead of a scheduled disciplinary hearing later in the week which would have heard complaints from Wrexham county councillors that Dr Marek had brought the party into disrepute by criticising council decisions.

Dr Marek is hoping to retain his assembly seat

He had also angered members of the Welsh Labour Party by writing to the Communications Workers' Union suggesting they should not give the party money if they did not like its policies.

Dr Marek caused Labour considerable surprise among AMs in 2000 by winning the election to become Deputy Presiding Officer ahead of Labour's official candidate, Rosemary Butler.

If complaints against him had been upheld, he could have been deselected as Wrexham's candidate.

But the compromise worked out between Dr Marek and the Labour party at the weekend means that Dr Marek will now voluntarily ask local party members to re-endorse his selection.

Trigger

A "trigger ballot" will take place, where local party branches will have a straight yes or no vote on whether to support him.

If he gets more than half the nominations, he will be automatically reselected to fight the assembly elections on 1 May, 2003.

I would not want to be the candidate if I didn't have my party's confidence

Dr John Marek

At present there are no other candidates, but if Dr Marek fails to secure 50% of the vote, the contest will be opened to other candidates.

Dr Marek said: "I welcome the fact that party members will have the chance to make the decision.

"I would not want to be the candidate if I didn't have my party's confidence."

Shan Wilkinson, leader of Wrexham council Labour group, is one of the people leading the complaints against Dr Marek.

She said: "I'm glad that the local members in Wrexham are now going to handle this."

The Welsh Labour Party issued a statement, saying: "Both Labour's Welsh Executive Committee and John Marek are pleased that Wrexham members will have an opportunity to make a clear decision on whether or not John should be their candidate next year."