Rhun ap Iorwerth

Rhun ap Iorwerth became Plaid Cymru leader in 2023 after stepping down as the Member of the Senedd for Ynys Môn, a seat he had held since 2013. He leads the party into the 7 May 2026 Senedd election as the largest opposition force to Welsh Labour and as the only party committed — eventually — to Welsh independence. His strategy for 2026 is a deliberate pivot away from that headline: the manifesto he launched in Newport on 28 February offered free childcare from nine months to four years, a £10-per-week child payment for lower-income families, and ten new surgical hubs, while committing to no independence referendum in a first term.

Ap Iorwerth comes from a broadcasting background, having worked for S4C before entering politics. He has built his public profile on bilingual accessibility and a centrist-Left economic platform that attempts to distinguish Plaid from both Welsh Labour's technocratic devolutionism and Reform UK's cultural populism. Plaid currently holds 12 Senedd seats out of 60, and the 2026 election is the first conducted under Closed-list proportional representation, replacing the old mixed-member system. The new system is expected to change how list-seat calculations work and may affect Plaid's regional list performance.

His independence deferral strategy reflects a calculation that swing voters in south Wales are more persuadable on public services than constitutional change. The manifesto's constitutional position — a £500,000 national commission to examine options in a first term — is deliberately non-committal. Whether that satisfies independence-movement activists while broadening the party's appeal to soft-Labour voters in the Valleys remains the central test of his leadership.

Ap Iorwerth was elected First Minister of Wales on 12 May 2026 and sworn in by Mrs Justice Mary Stacey DBE, becoming the first head of the Welsh Government from outside the Labour Party since devolution in 1999 — and the first to represent a North Wales constituency (Bangor Conwy Môn).

Plaid won 43 of 96 Senedd seats on 7 May, six short of the 49-seat majority threshold under the new closed-list PR system. The minority government survives on confidence and supply from the two Wales Green Party MSs, Anthony Slaughter and Paul Rock, who voted ap Iorwerth in without a written agreement. The Greens published four conditions on 9 May (cost-of-living, NHS, the rental crisis, and the natural environment) but no formal document is on the public record. Ap Iorwerth's cabinet is entirely Plaid: Sioned Williams as Deputy First Minister, Elin Jones at Finance, Mabon ap Gwynfor at Health, and Adam Price at Enterprise.

Ap Iorwerth was elected First Minister of Wales on 12 May 2026 and sworn in by Mrs Justice Mary Stacey DBE, becoming the first head of the Welsh Government from outside the Labour Party since devolution in 1999, and the first to represent a North Wales constituency (Bangor Conwy Môn).

Plaid won 43 of 96 Senedd seats on 7 May, six short of the 49-seat majority threshold under the new closed-list PR system. The minority government survives on confidence and supply from the two Wales Green Party MSs, Anthony Slaughter and Paul Rock, who voted ap Iorwerth in without a written agreement. The Greens published four conditions on 9 May (cost-of-living, NHS, the rental crisis, and the natural environment) but no formal document is on the public record. Ap Iorwerth's cabinet is entirely Plaid: Sioned Williams as Deputy First Minister, Elin Jones at Finance, Mabon ap Gwynfor at Health, and Adam Price at Enterprise.

On 1 July, ap Iorwerth faced his government's first sustained policy defence at First Minister's Questions, blaming a graduate nurse and midwife shortfall behind a £145m NHS allocation on 2022 training-place over-commissioning that predated his administration.