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At the time of her election as Plaid Cymru leader in 2012, Leanne Wood was seen as an authentically working-class politician who could take the party to new levels of success.

Six years later she has little support among her senior colleagues, with no MPs endorsing her and only one AM.

Dafydd Wigley, the iconic former party leader who persuaded her to stand for the leadership in the first place, is now backing one of her rivals.

What has gone wrong?

When she stood for the party leadership she had no expectation of winning. The safe, party establishment candidate Elin Jones was seen as the obvious favourite, with Dafydd Elis-Thomas, the third candidate, looking rather optimistically for a new major role after losing the Presiding Officer’s post he had held for 12 years.

Ms Wood was thought of as something of a rebel; she had called the Queen “Mrs Windsor” and was unequivocally on the far left of the party. It was not unknown for her to be referred to in political circles half-jokingly as a “Trot” – short for Trotskyist.

But at the time of the leadership contest in 2012, Plaid was in the doldrums and many members were looking for a fresh start.

Although generally considered to have made a positive contribution during its four years in government from 2007, Plaid suffered the frequent fate of a junior coalition partner by doing poorly in the 2011 election.

When Ieuan Wyn Jones stepped down as Plaid leader, Leanne Wood came to the fore partly because she was his polar opposite. A former country solicitor – as he was once disparagingly described by Peter Hain – Jones had built a political career on not frightening the horses.

During his 14 years as MP for Ynys Môn, and later as its AM, he had managed to bridge the divide between Welsh-speakers and English-speakers, securing the seat for Plaid Cymru.

However, when he stood down from the parliamentary seat in 2001 it was lost to Labour because Plaid locally was divided over who should succeed him.

In the 2012 leadership election Ms Wood won support not just in her home region of the Valleys, but from Welsh-speakers in the Gwynedd heartlands and elsewhere.

She was backed by leading figures like Wigley and in Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg despite not being a first-language Welsh-speaker and preferring to give speeches and interviews in English.

She was promoted as a leader under whom Plaid would make significant breakthroughs in the Valleys.

Her first electoral test was not an Assembly election, but the General Election of 2015. She appeared in TV leaders’ debates, in one of which she memorably delivered a put-down remark to Nigel Farage which went down well with all opponents of Ukip.

She may have been overshadowed by Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, but she didn’t acquit herself badly.

The election result was disappointing, with Plaid simply retaining the three seats it held.

Even so, in the run-up to the 2016 Assembly election Ms Wood was promoted as a potential First Minister and the party engaged the SNP’s image consultant to make her appear slicker.

Some said this did her no favours and detracted from the authenticity of her identity as an ordinary person from the Valleys, while others thought she needed to appear more polished to be seen as a potential First Minister.

Plaid managed to regain narrowly its position as the Assembly’s second party from the Conservatives. In doing so it made one spectacular breakthrough: Leanne Wood won Rhondda with a 22.2% swing from Labour Cabinet Minister Leighton Andrews.

(Image: Rob Browne)

But despite her own impressive victory there was no sign of the hoped-for gains for Plaid elsewhere in the Valleys, except in Blaenau Gwent, where Labour’s majority was reduced to 650 votes.

A year later, in the 2017 General Election, Plaid regained Ceredigion narrowly from the Liberal Democrats – and narrowly held off a Labour challenge in Arfon.

In its target seats of Llanelli and Ynys Môn the party came third. Without the victories in Arfon and Ceredigion – where the combined majorities amounted to just 196 votes – Ms Wood would surely have resigned. But she stayed on.

Since the 2016 election the size of the Plaid group has gone down by two, with Dafydd Elis-Thomas now in government as an Independent, and Neil McEvoy having been expelled.

The leadership election in which Ms Wood is being challenged by Adam Price and Rhun ap Iorwerth has the party’s generally uninspiring electoral performance as a backdrop.

But there are additional, more pressing reasons why she hasn’t got the support of parliamentarians in Westminster and Cardiff Bay.

For public consumption, Plaid politicians will say the party is fortunate to have three such talented leadership candidates, and that any of them are credible as potential First Ministers.

Privately, it’s a different story.

While preceding their criticisms with the assertion that Leanne is a lovely person, they set out in detail why in their view she is not up to leading the party – and in no way could be seen as a credible First Minister.

One senior Plaid source said: “The reason why Leanne has so little support among elected national politicians is because we are the ones who work with her closely and see how she approaches the job.

“We are moving towards the next Assembly election in 2021 when it is vital that we have the opportunity to form a government.

"Yet she has shown no leadership in tasking people to bring together ideas and craft them into practical policies that will help us win the election. This kind of work needs to be done well in advance.

“It’s also important to take professional advice from outside the party, but she decided not to renew the services of the SNP adviser she had been working with.

“The Assembly group told her they have no confidence in her, but she refused to stand down as leader and just carried on.”

Another party source said: “It’s no wonder she has no support from the MPs. There has been no communication from Leanne as to what she expects them to do in Westminster, and therefore they make their own decisions.

“If you have a meeting with her, she has no ideas of her own, but wants whatever is under discussion to be sent to the National Executive Committee and sometimes for wider debate at the National Council.

“She doesn’t offer any guidance, but will be critical if she doesn’t like what you’ve said.

“The party is in desperate need of vision and leadership, but its present state is sclerotic.”

A series of eight party hustings meetings involving all three candidates began on Tuesday in Pontypridd. The result of the leadership contest will be announced on September 28.