Political Parties in Africa: Challenges for Sustained Multiparty

More documents

Recommendations

Info

0 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.
International Idea 9. There is reasonable documentation on the financing of political parties in their efforts to maintain themselves as organizations, to compete for elections and to participate in national politics and national debates. However, there is a pressing need for detailed case studies on how political parties are really configured on the ground. This topic has not been meaningfully researched, and only a few full-fledged case studies, concentrating on priority area, have been carried out. A comparative database has been developed by International IDEA. IDEA and the Institute of Social Studies (ISS) in the Netherlands are in the process of establishing a partnership to provide better opportunities for comparative analysis. 10. The desirability or non-desirability of party laws and further party regulations has not been fully documented or debated in many African countries. Similar regulations may have very different impact. Some countries have kept delaying the enactment or implementation of party laws until such time as these laws would give the governing political party advantages over the opposition. However, there should be a serious debate on political party regulations before rash policy recommendations are hastily implemented, probably creating more problems that they have been expected to solve. 11. Although African political parties are integrated into global party-to-party networks, associations and the so-called party internationals, corresponding pan-African party-to-party networks of like-minded ideologies is yet to develop among African political parties independent of the internationals (apart of course from the so-called progressive liberation movement governments). IDEA and other democracy promotion institutions should build on IDEA’s current work with African regional and sub-regional parliamentary forums, communities and networks. Finally, more encouragement of South–South exchange and sharing of experiences is also important. 131 Conclusions and Recommendations
Page 1:
Political Parties in Africa: Challe
Page 4 and 5:
Page 6 and 7:
Besides this report on political pa
Page 8 and 9:
5. Party Structures and Internal Or
Page 10 and 11:
0 Chapter 1 Methodology
Page 12 and 13:
Page 14 and 15:
Mauritius Labour Party Mauritian Mi
Page 16 and 17:
Page 18 and 19:
Chapter 2 Introduction
Page 20 and 21:
0 Political Parties in Africa: Chal
Page 22 and 23:
Page 24 and 25:
Chapter 3 Context
Page 26 and 27:
3.1 The internal context 3.1.1 Soci
Page 28 and 29:
Page 30 and 31:
Page 32 and 33:
Page 34 and 35:
Page 36 and 37:
3.2 The external context Political
Page 38 and 39:
Page 40 and 41:
0 Chapter 4 African Party and Elect
Page 42 and 43:
Page 44 and 45:
Page 46 and 47:
Page 48 and 49:
Page 50 and 51:
Page 52 and 53:
52 Political Parties in Africa: Cha
Page 54 and 55:
Page 56 and 57:
No. Country Electoral system for na
Page 58 and 59:
Page 60 and 61:
Page 62 and 63:
Page 64 and 65:
• the Pan-African Parliament; •
Page 66 and 67:
Page 68 and 69:
Page 70 and 71:
Page 72 and 73:
No. Country Parties 16 Associates P
Page 74 and 75:
No. Country Political party Politic
Page 76 and 77:
No. Country Political party Politic
Page 78 and 79:
Chapter 5 Party Structures and Inte
Page 80 and 81: 5 5.1.1 Party structure 0 Political
Page 82 and 83: Political Parties in Africa: Challe
Page 88 and 89: 6 Political Parties in Africa: Chal
Page 94 and 95: Country Constitutional crisis and l
Page 98 and 99: Country Percentage of women in legi
Page 100 and 101: 00 Political Parties in Africa: Cha
Page 102 and 103: 0 Chapter 6 External Party Regulati
Page 104 and 105: 6.1 New parties—old theories? 0 P
Page 108 and 109: 6.3.1 The proscription model 0 Poli
Page 110 and 111: 12 13 6.3.5 The prescription model
Page 114 and 115: 114 Political Parties in Africa: Ch
Page 116 and 117: 116 Political Parties in Africa: Ch
Page 122 and 123: No. Country Year of introduction 1
Page 124 and 125: Country Enforcement authority Benin
Page 126 and 127: Chapter 7 Conclusions and Recommend
Page 132 and 133: Acronyms and Abbreviations ACE Admi
Page 134 and 135: References and Select Bibliography
Page 136 and 137: Kadima, Denis, (ed.), The Politics
Page 138 and 139: —‘Building Political Parties: R
Page 140 and 141: About the Authors Per Nordlund is a
show all

Political Parties in Africa: Challenges for Sustained Multiparty

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?