Political Parties in Africa: Challenges for Sustained Multiparty

Country Type of election Remarks
International Idea
Zambia General elections Movement for Multi-party Democracy
(MMD) (60.8% of the vote). Main ethnic
groups include Bemba and Luapula, on
the one hand, and Chinyanaia, Lozi and
Tonga, with different constellations of
party support
Zimbabwe House of Assembly Zimbabwe African National Union-
Patriotic Front (82.3% of the vote).
Ethnic divisions emanating from the
late years of independence (Shona, with
whom power rests, versus Ndbele)
Nigeria Presidential
House of Representatives
Senate
People’s Democratic Party (57.2%).
Yuroba/Igbo provided the main ethnic
base, with the opposition consisting of
the northern-dominated Fulani/Huasa
alliance with All People’s Party and
Alliance for Democracy
Source: Compiled from Mohamed Salih, M. A., African Democracies and African Politics (London:
Pluto Press, 2001), pp. 37–8.
Fourth, the dominance of elite pacts is also a reflection of ethnic group pacts. While
elections are fought on the basis of the support chiefs lend to one political party or
another, after the elections, political pacts or coalitions are forged without reference
to the constituencies. Although African political parties are modern, they appeal to
ethnicity exploited and mobilized in a classic populist fashion in combination with
linguistic, religious and regional cleavages.
Because a single ethnic group may speak more than one language (and more than
two ethnic groups may belong to the same language group), the correlation between
ethnic and linguistic affiliation could at times lead to the one being mistaken for the
other. For instance, in Ethiopia, where political organizations such as ethnic liberation
movements (rather than political parties in the strict sense) are permitted under the
constitution, the conflation of language and ethnicity is more apparent. The case of
Ethiopia is different from that of most other African countries, where the formation
of political parties based on ethnicity or religion is banned by the constitution.
Table 3.3 illustrates the diversity of African languages and the complexities they
present for the formation of state-wide political parties where language—the main
medium of communication—could be deployed to cement national integration
through the aggregation of different language groups’ interests. Some of these groups
cannot even communicate with each other in any language other than the official
national language (often a European language, and in other cases Arabic), and much
also depends on the level of illiteracy among the members of particular language or
ethnic groups.
Context