Rhodri Morgan emerged from two-and-a-half hours of Labour pains to announce his bid to run a minority Labour Assembly government.
His choices are now limited to seeking a 'stability pact' with the Lib Dems or Plaid Cymru after the power-sharing options of formal coalition had 'ruled themselves out' in talks, he said.
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Such a pact would require major policy concessions to another party in the hung 60-member Assembly to allow Labour ministers alone into government.
Mr Morgan says Labour now recognise 'we don’t live in an exclusively Labour world'.
“We hope to be in a position to form a minority administration but one that has to be supported in order to have some kind of stability and sustainability.”
He added: “The next few days now are going to be pretty important because we are seeking to move things on from the stage of being talks about talks to really serious negotiations.
“But that depends on other parties, it depends on being able to successfully overcome the hurdles.
“By comparison with places like Northern Ireland it’s a very minor job but you know that Welsh politics has its own characteristics but we will seek to solve the problems because the people of Wales expect us to and they expects the other parties to as well.
“I don’t think coalitions are probably the lead option, a stability pact rather than coalition. We haven’t ruled them out but they seem to be ruling themselves out as a result of discussions we have had so far.”
Another option remains for the previous opposition parties to form a ‘Rainbow Alliance’ and force Labour into opposition.
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