 Plaid president Dafydd Iwan and assembly leader Ieuan Wyn Jones |
Plaid Cymru, or the Party of Wales, has fought for self-government in Wales since it was formed in 1925.
It gained its first MP in 1966, and has been a continual presence in the House of Commons since 1974.
Its 2001 general election it gained a total of four out of 40 Welsh MPs, equaling its best Westminster performance.
In terms of votes cast, though, Plaid was third behind Labour and the Conservatives.
Anti-war platform
Plaid Cymru has pinned its colours to the 2005 general election mast, and the hue is definitely red.
Not surprisingly, Plaid leaders dismiss Welsh Secretary Peter Hain's claim they have already "hoisted the white flag" .
They say they will fight Westminster seats with socialist banner high. Or, as parliamentary leader Elfyn Llwyd put it at their spring conference in the Welsh-speaking heartland in Caernarfon, Plaid is a socialist party "and proud of it".
The challenge to the dominance of Labour in Wales is clear. Or, as Plaid Cymru puts it, "New Labour in Wales".
Plaid says it has based its policies on socialist principles since it was founded. It evidently hopes it can scoop up votes from Labour's disaffected supporters after eight years of Tony Blair in power.
Plaid, which is a strong opponent of the Iraq war, is trying to have Tony Blair impeached over what it claimed were his "lies" to justify military action against Saddam Hussein.
One of its slogans is "Blair lied, vote Plaid".
Among the promises made by Plaid for this election is a "people's contract" spelling out that its candidates will "put Wales' interests first and never give in to the London agenda."
But a challenge will be to project itself as something more than an anti-Iraq war party.
Local strength
The first election to the devolved Welsh assembly represented Plaid's political high watermark to date.
The party won 17 of the 60 assembly seats in the first election in 1999, becoming the official opposition to Labour.
But Plaid slipped back to 12 AMs at the last election in 2003, and in 2004 it also lost the Labour heartland south Wales valley councils it unexpectedly won four years earlier.
 Gwynedd, home to Snowdon, is controlled by Plaid Cymru |
It is still the ruling party on Gwynedd County Council, but it has lost control of the key valleys councils of Rhondda Cynon Taf and Caerphilly that it won in its triumphal year of 1999.
At the last Westminster election, losing Ynys Mon to Labour was a clear embarrassment. The seat had been held by the party's then president, Ieuan Wyn Jones before he gave it up for the assembly.
Adam Price's victory in Carmarthen East and Dinefwr last time round did go some way to sugar that bitter pill of defeat. Plaid will fight tooth and nail to stop Labour taking it back this time.
Traditionalist challenge
Dafydd Iwan, Plaid president since Ieuan Wyn Jones stepped down after election setbacks in 2003, has written that "it's high time that nationalists in Wales realise that complaining, blaming or extremist sloganeering is no longer sufficient: we need to grasp our responsibilities, and translate our principles into practical action."
But he was not writing about the party's defeats in valley communities. Rather, he was responding to the formation, by more traditional members of Plaid Cymru, of Welsh language pressure group Cymuned.
Cymuned's birth exposed tensions. The party's official title is Plaid Cymru, the Party of Wales, and there was a belief among traditional supporters that it was in danger of playing too much to its English-speaking support.
In other words, that it was in danger of forgetting traditional issues by concentrating too much on an urban, valleys strategy.
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It's high time that nationalists in Wales realise that complaining, blaming or extremist sloganeering is no longer sufficient
Peter Snow analysis 
