Political Parties in Africa: Challenges for Sustained Multiparty

International Idea
how corrupt political parties which have won elections through fraud would, upon
finding themselves in control of government, finances and personnel, adopt the
principles of good governance overnight. Second, the enigma of succession politics is
a major conflict-inducing factor in almost all African countries, including collapsed
states. Little is known, let alone understood, of the relationship between leaders and
political parties and we do not know whether succession crises are political partydriven
or a reflection of nationwide leadership crises.
These challenges might seem few on paper. However, their political ramifications—
how to come to grips with their solutions and what policies and actions could
contribute to meeting them—are difficult and complex to address. They form a
long-term agenda that requires interfaces with several other institutions, and some of
that agenda is not even directly within the domain of party politics.
7.2 Recommendations
1. Although the role of political parties in promoting democratic governance
is commonly understood, most African countries use political parties in the
narrow sense as instruments developed by the elite for state capture. This could
be rectified through increased capacity-building and awareness workshops
and seminars on the centrality of political parties for thriving democratic
governance.
2. There is a pressing need for the vast documentation on internal and external
party regulations to be subjected to a reality check in order to support political
parties through workshops, training and capacity-building programmes to
redress deficiencies in their organization, structures and functions.
3. Too little is known about how political parties are managed and internally
organized, how their programmes are developed (and in fact the content of
these programmes and how the global context affects them), what mechanisms
parties have in order to implement these programmes once in government,
or how opposition political parties develop policies to influence government
programmes by actively referring to and improving their own. There is
therefore a need for training programmes on political party management
and organization in order to increase their effectiveness, transparency and
accountability.
4. While some progress has been made on women’s representation in parliament,
not least in Southern Africa, this has not been matched by any increased
influence of women in political parties, or by policy agendas reflecting many
gender-related matters. There are no short cuts to increased gender equality
Conclusions and Recommendations