Plaid Cymru has won the Welsh Senedd election, ending 100 years of Labour control in Wales and pushing Reform UK into second place. The centre-left Welsh nationalist party secured 43 seats, while Reform UK won 34, Labour nine, the Conservatives seven, Greens two, and Liberal Democrats one.
Party leader Rhun ap Iorwerth said he was ready to become first minister and form the next Welsh government. Speaking in Llandudno, he called the result 'a moment 100 years in the making' and said Plaid Cymru would press ahead with talks to form a minority government. No party reached the 49-seat majority threshold under Wales's new proportional voting system.
Welsh Labour leader Eluned Morgan lost her seat and resigned as party leader, describing the result as 'catastrophic'. She said Labour would need to 'understand the depth of the challenge' and that the age of two-party dominance was over. The defeat marks a seismic shift in Welsh politics, with Labour having governed since devolution in 1999.
The result makes a future Welsh independence referendum a possibility, and means all three Celtic nations are now led by pro-independence parties. Pollsters noted the new D'Hondt voting system made the election hard to predict, but the contest was widely seen as a two-horse race between Plaid Cymru and Reform UK.
