Political Parties in Africa: Challenges for Sustained Multiparty

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Political Parties in Africa: Challenges for Sustained Multiparty Democracy
except real influence over party agendas and policy formulation. Training and
decision-making processes that can help to alleviate these shortcomings must
remain high on the agenda for parties and development partners.
5. African party systems are changing rapidly, with contradictory tendencies.
One is towards fragmentation and the end of the nationwide, towards the
formation of regional, quasi-ethnic and religious parties. The other is towards
dominant-party and two-party systems. In this sense African political parties
are not static; once a country’s system has been classified as a one-party
system or another the classification could change in subsequent elections.
By implication, studies on political party institutionalization are important
and should be carried out to show what aspects of party systems have been
institutionalized, which have not, and why. The lack of regime turnover
through elections needs to be analysed further from the perspective of
opposition parties and coalitions, and their prospects for institutionalization
and consolidation.
6. More efforts are needed to find ways in which to curb domination by ruling
parties through the abuse of state funds and resources. Independent audit
functions can be introduced, but parliamentary committee systems can also
contribute to transparency in this regard. The establishment of a code of
conduct for ruling parties and coalitions in Africa could be another important
step in the right direction.
7. There is an increasing body of literature on minority governments and
coalitions, but little is known about how and why coalitions are really formed,
and what legal instruments govern their power-sharing mechanisms. There
is therefore a need for a better understanding of coalition politics and its
short-, medium- and long-term implications for the democratic process.
Kadima shows how presidential systems are more prone to the breaking up
of winning coalitions than parliamentary systems are (Kadima 2006: 224ff),
giving further evidence of the problems associated with the concentration of
power in the office of the president.
8. Although the generic relationship between political parties, government and
parliament is well understood, in fact the constellation of these relations
between elections is poorly understood. This could be a result of too much
capacity building for parliamentarians (in effect empowering the machinery
of government) and too little training for political parties’ leaders and their
key members. Training for political parties and political party functionaries is
important for creating democratic interfaces and synergies as well as building
a solid base for democratic practices which can be passed ‘up the line’ from
political parties to parliament.