Former Plaid chief executive Karl Davies stands to be party Chair

Martin Shipton

A former chief executive of Plaid Cymru is standing to be the party’s national Chair, it has emerged.

Karl Davies headed Plaid’s administrative arm from 1993 to 2002, having previously worked as a BBC Wales political journalist and as an adviser to Plaid MPs Dafydd Elis-Thomas and Dafydd Wigley.

After leaving Plaid he was the Wales officer for the National Association of Head Teachers before heading the BBC Trust in Wales for 14 years.

When the BBC Trust was wound up, Davies had a career change, spending four years teaching English in China. He is currently head of Welsh language education in the Vale of Glamorgan.

He told Nation.Cymru: “Maintaining the momentum that the recent electoral successes have given the party is fundamentally important. We can’t take anything for granted and most important, perhaps, is reflecting that electoral success by strengthening branches and constituency parties across Wales.

“We need to make sure that a new generation of people come into the party as activists, and that there’s sufficient political education to make sure that these people make a meaningful contribution to the party’s affairs in the long term.

“Unless we strengthen the roots of the party and its base, we’re not going to be able to defend the successes that the party has had this year in future elections. So there’s a big job for the party to do in terms of organisation, fostering membership, educating its membership and making sure that it is able to maintain and strengthen its electoral gains in the future.”

Davies said it was “absolutely essential” that the membership comes first in the party. He said: “We’ve seen in other parties what happens when the elected members take control. When the control of the party is taken away from its membership, there is a slippery slope that leads to disaster. Unless the membership is emboldened and empowered, the party can’t succeed and survive because it’s from those roots that the party grows. This year’s magnificent successes would not have been possible but for the work of party members and activists over the last 100 years. It’s that work and that activism that’s got to be sustained and strengthened in order to keep the party electorally successful in future years as well.”

Davies said it was vital that the party developed policies in the future that reflected members’ knowledge of the communities in which they live: “It’s got to be a dynamic process, involving all parts of the party,” he said. “Obviously, the elected members have got a very strong role in this because they’re in the process of implementing policies at the moment. But you take a step back from that, and we’ve got to make sure that the policies which the party promotes, the policies it has in its future manifestos reflect what people need and what the party thinks it can achieve.

Council elections

Next year’s council elections would be crucial for the party, he said: “I think it will be able to achieve an enormous amount. The party needs to be looking very carefully and concentrating very carefully on the local authorities it could be in a position to control. “Cooperation between central government in Cardiff Bay and local government in the local authorities in Wales is going to be essential for Plaid to be able to achieve what it wants to achieve in the near future and implement its manifesto policies.”

Nominations have now closed for the role of party Chair.

Gwynedd councillor Elin Hywel announced last week that she will also be a candidate.

The result of the internal party election will be announced at Plaid Cymru’s annual conference in Llandudno in October.

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