Political Parties in Africa: Challenges for Sustained Multiparty

Political Parties in Africa: Challenges for Sustained Multiparty Democracy
for what purpose they are formed, what legal instruments govern their powersharing
arrangement, and what are the implications for political party formation and
alignments in the future. Kadima (2006) provides useful insights into the politics
of party coalitions in Africa but more research is needed. The generic relationship
between parties, government and parliament is generally well understood. However,
in many countries, the actual constellation of these relations in between elections is
inadequately understood.
A recurrent feature of all dialogue events during 2005–2006 carried out by
International IDEA and partners in Africa has been the issue of dominant ruling
parties and their relationship to the state. We do not have to got to extreme cases of
party abuse of state resources, be they financial, media, use of repressive arms of the
government or the judiciary—as in Zimbabwe today—to see that this fusion of party
and state boundaries constitutes a real challenge to the sustainability of multiparty
politics in Africa. While the problem is more serious in Africa than in other regions,
it is certainly a common feature also in other regions, including Europe. Carothers
(2006: 68–73) provides a useful insight into this problem at the global level.
No evidence emerges from the research conducted thus far to suggest that the
increase in the numbers of women parliamentarians has been matched in women’s
representation in party leadership positions and committees. In our view, women’s
participation and representation in party politics is more important than token
parliamentary representation. Women’s presence in political party leadership
positions is an important step for sustaining democratic governance at the local level
given political parties’ proximity to society and to local political culture and the very
values that we aspire to nurture in order to foster political inclusion at the national
level.
Pan-African party to-party networks of like-minded ideological trends and policy
orientation are yet to develop independent of party internationals. Almost all pan-
African parliamentary groupings are engaged in elections or election observation, but
their conclusions may have been less than impartial and accurate: it is problematic to
see how election observation missions to other African countries have concluded that
elections have been free and fair (even Zimbabwe’s 2002 presidential election, for some
organizations) while at the same time we see various forms of civil authoritarianism
emerging in the same countries.
Two serious challenges will keep upsetting the African democratization process:
political party financing and succession politics. First, the current patterns of
political party financing corrupt politics and by extension spread corruption in
political institutions based on political appointments. It is difficult to imagine