Plaid party told: Pick candidate

PLAID Cymru has told its Cardiff West constituency party to select a candidate for the next National Assembly election by the end of September in a move that could thwart expelled AM Neil McEvoy’s ambition to fight the seat.

Earlier this month Mr McEvoy withdrew an application to rejoin Plaid, from which he was expelled for 12 months in March 2018.

A 12-person panel was evenly split over whether to readmit the South Wales Central AM.

It was due to reconvene, but was disbanded after details of the private hearing were leaked to the Western Mail.

When a new panel was set up, Mr McEvoy withdrew his membership application, claiming some members were biased, having made negative comments about him on social media. He, however, still hopes to rejoin Plaid with a view to standing against the sitting Labour AM, First Minister Mark Drakeford, in 2021.

Plaid Cymru’s autumn conference will take place in Swansea on October 4 and October 5.

Supporters of Mr McEvoy have organised a slate of candidates to stand for the party’s ruling national executive committee, hoping to oust current members of the NEC. They hope that if Mr McEvoy’s opponents on the NEC are ousted, he would get a more sympathetic hearing if he resumed his attempt to get back into the party.

However, Plaid officials have now told the Cardiff West local party to start the selection process for a new Assembly candidate, and complete it with a candidate in place by the end of September.

If the local party refuses to select a candidate, it has been told that one will be imposed.

The selection of regional list candidates will follow shortly afterwards. What complicates the matter further is that the election of a new NEC will also see an attempt by party leader Adam Price to get more of his loyal supporters elected to the body.

A senior Plaid Cymru source said: “This will be the first NEC election since Adam Price was elected leader in September 2018 and it is inevitable that he will want to have the NEC fully behind him in the run-up to the Assembly election in 2021, after which there is optimism that he could become First Minister.”

The source added that some of the existing NEC members would see themselves as more allied to the party’s former leader Leanne Wood than to Mr Price.

“With supporters of Neil McEvoy fielding their own slate of candidates, there will therefore be three factions contending for the upper hand,” said the source.

Plaid Cymru confirmed that local parties had been asked to select “first past the post” candidates by the end of September.