Yahoo Finance Wales election: Labour equals its best-ever Senedd result by winning 30 seats
Mark Drakeford has vowed to be "radical" and "ambitious" in government as his party looks set to remain in power in Wales.
Labour has equalled its best ever Senedd election result by winning 30 seats - just one short of a majority - though it is not expected to take any of the remaining four regional seats left to be declared on Saturday.
If it does not pick up any of the remaining seats, Mr Drakeford can choose to form a minority government or invite members of other parties into a Labour-led administration, giving the party greater control of the Senedd.
Welsh Labour put Friday's "extraordinary set of results" down to Mr Drakeford's leadership during the coronavirus pandemic, which has seen the First Minister's cautious and careful approach go down well with voters.
Asked if he planned to continue his cautious brand of politics during a new administration, Mr Drakeford told the PA news agency: "Well, absolutely as far as coronavirus is concerned. The pandemic has not gone away.
"A government I lead will continue to follow the science to do what our medical advisers tells us we should do, and that does mean doing things in a way that continues to keep Wales safe.
"But on other matters, our manifesto is a radical manifesto with a host of ideas that are ambitious for Wales.
"I'll be very keen to ensure that we give that the most powerful sense of momentum behind it to get those things happening here in Wales."
Mr Drakeford returned to Labour's offices in Cardiff for reserved celebrations after Friday's night of constituency results gave the party 27 seats.
But after the first set of regional results led Labour to equal their best ever result, Mr Drakeford will visit Porthcawl, Bridgend, on Saturday afternoon to make a speech to party members.
Welsh Liberal Democrat leader Jane Dodds, who won a regional seat in Mid and West Wales after her party lost the Brecon and Radnorshire constituency to the Conservatives, said she has yet to be approached by Mr Drakeford to help form the next government.
She told BBC Radio Cymru: "I need to speak to other people within the party and we shall have to see."
Meanwhile, the Welsh Conservatives have 14 seats, including taking Vale of Clwyd from Labour, and Plaid Cymru have 11, having lost its high-profile former leader Leanne Wood's Rhondda seat to Labour.
Ms Wood said on her Facebook page that the result was "disappointing", but that her team can "hold our heads high in the knowledge that we ran a clean and honest campaign, we did not denigrate our opponents and we worked hard".
Polling at the start of the campaign suggested Labour was facing its worst ever result and was at risk of winning as few as 22 of the Senedd's 60 seats, a loss of seven from 2016, though later polls suggested a stronger showing.
Read more: May 2021 results: Everything you need to know
After voting closed at 10pm on Thursday, party sources said retaining all of its seats in the Senedd remained "a massive challenge".
Mr Drakeford, who extended his majority for his Cardiff West seat by more than 10,000 votes, said he was delighted his party had "exceeded expectations".
"Did I think we would be up approaching the top of the twenties? That was probably at the top end of what I thought was achievable, given the extraordinary circumstances of this election," he said.
Mr Drakeford said he will wait until all election results are in on Saturday before he turns his mind to forming a new Welsh Government.
"I will want to sit down tomorrow when we have a full suite of results in front of us to think about how we can achieve what we need here in Wales, which is a stable and progressive government."
Health minister Vaughan Gething held his Cardiff South and Penarth seat with 18,153 votes (49.89 per cent), a increase of 4,879 votes from 2016, and said Labour and Mr Drakeford's handling of the coronavirus pandemic was a "major factor" in the party's results.
He said: "We've had to make life-changing choices that affected every single family in the country.
"The pandemic has thrust the First Minister in the spotlight, and most people like what they've seen in the way he's handled the pandemic."
"The Tories put a lot of heavy artillery into North Wales. The Prime Minister visited several times, the Chancellor was there, Andrew RT Davies was there on regular occasions, and they launched their manifesto in Wrexham," he said.
Wrexham, Clwyd South and Delyn, were all held despite being targeted by the Tories after they flipped them from Labour in the 2019 general election.
Welsh Tory leader in the Senedd Andrew RT Davies said his party's taking of Vale of Clwyd from Labour was a "brilliant result", but suggested traditional Labour voters who voted Tory in the 2019 general election had now "come home".
Mr Davies told the PA news agency: "It does seem from other seats that have been declared in other parts of Wales that the Labour voters have come home to it after the, shall we say, Brexit election of 2019.
Labour said Plaid Cymru had "imploded" in losing its Rhondda seat to Labour's Elizabeth Buffy Williams and failing to take target seats Llanelli and Aberconwy.
Rhondda's outgoing MS, Leanne Wood, told ITV Wales the result was "disappointing", but said her party ran a "clean and honest campaign".
Labour's strong results will minimise its reliance on other parties in order to form a government, with Plaid previously thought as the most likely to enter into a coalition with them were Labour some way short of a majority.
