99Rewind: On the way to Cardiff Bay - a Plaid Cymru viewpoint

It is hard to describe the excitement upon being selected as a Plaid Cymru candidate to stand in the 1999 election. To be standing in the first general election for a Welsh Parliament in hundreds of years was a huge honour.

It had not been my intention originally to stand; my family was still very young, and my youngest son was only five when party selections were being made. Immediately after the 1997 referendum, together with Elinor Bennett (wife of then Plaid Cymru leader Dafydd Wigley), I spent many months hosting dinners and holding conferences in north Wales to encourage as many women as possible to put their names forward. I maintained that I would not be putting my name forward; I was already a County Councillor on the newly formed Denbighshire County Council and that was taking me away from home considerably.

However as the process went on it was obvious that not many of those who had shown an interest, and were on the internal candidates’ register, had actually put their names forward. Nor were there many candidates from those areas not traditionally thought of as strong ‘Plaid areas’ in north Wales.

It was also becoming obvious that most of the constituencies had selected men and Plaid therefore took the decision to put women on top of all their (proportional) regional lists. We had reasoned that we should, given a good election, get an Assembly Member (AM) for each of the five regional lists and if those were all women, that would balance out the constituency seats we expected to win, which had for the most part selected men.

I was also a member of Plaid’s National Executive and I remember the meeting when Dafydd Wigley, having reviewed the list of candidates already selected in north Wales, banged his fist on the table and said we were stopping the selection process there and then and I was to put my name forward – slightly difficult as I was not even on the list of candidates at the time!

However, having had all the necessary interviews, my name duly went forward and I was selected as top of the north Wales list.

Dmitri Mihhailov | Dreamstime.com
Reaction on the doorstep

To fight the campaign it was decided that I would work to help Plaid in the Conwy constituency but campaign myself mainly in the north-east.  It was a hard campaign in many respects, persuading and telling people what Plaid was all about.

I remember on one occasion we were in Saltney, where the England–Wales border runs through the town, taking a picture for a pamphlet with Wigley when a taxi pulled up.  The driver rolled down the window and shouted “You’re Plaid aren’t you? What are you doing here?”

Well the good thing was he knew we were Plaid – but “what were we doing there?” was a theme repeated on a number of occasions!

Nevertheless, the election heralded a major step change not just for Wales but for Plaid Cymru as well.  Previously the “What are you doing here?” accusation would have in many cases been quite threatening. It wasn’t that long before 1999 that Plaid canvassers were being chased out of areas.

This time there was an increased warmth and acceptance. And very often, even in the most unlikely places, the response would be: “Of course I’m voting Plaid this time – this is ‘your’ election!”

There was a definite recognition that these new elections were very different to anything people had voted on before. While many voters probably wouldn’t have given Plaid the time of day before, there was a recognition that this new Welsh Assembly needed a party based only in Wales, and more importantly listening only to the people of Wales.

Plaid’s time had come to step up to the mark, and for people to respond to our aims and ambitions. And they did. Plaid had the best election it has ever had, and subsequently other parties have realised to succeed in Wales they needed to rebrand themselves as Welsh to eat into this uniqueness, but all have failed to cut the strings with London completely.

There were other issues of course and every door you knocked on had to have a full explanation of what the Assembly was. I’d make the case that it was here to serve the whole of Wales, not just “The south”, as well as the new responsibilities and voting system.

Those questions can still be heard, three elections hence, but in an ever-diminishing number. The 2011 referendum proving that, for many, the Assembly has shown its worth and for those in the north-east it has proved that it is not only an Assembly just for Cardiff.

But what this election will bring for Plaid, only time will tell...