Political Parties in Africa: Challenges for Sustained Multiparty

2
Political Parties in Africa: Challenges for Sustained Multiparty Democracy
In chapter 3, we alluded to the ethnic nature of African political parties and the
significant role ethnicity plays in the formation of political parties, the support
they receive, and voter behaviour. Their ethnic nature is an important aspect in, for
instance, determining the number of parties that win seats in the parliament and their
relative sizes. Ethnicity and religion could also determine political party relations,
the formation of governments, and to some extent the stability (or otherwise) of
government—in particular determining whether parties’ size gives them the prospect
of winning, or at least sharing, government power.
It is within this perspective that we recognize the presence of four African party
systems, as already mentioned—one-party systems, two-party systems, dominantparty
systems and multiparty systems. We deal with these in turn.
4.2.1 One-party systems
Historically, African one-party systems are associated with the late 1960s until the
early 1990s when at least four-fifths of the continent was ruled by authoritarian
regimes (one-party states, military regimes, military socialist regimes and civil
dictatorships). Heywood (2002: 259–60) has made the point that ‘one-party system’
is a contradiction in terms, since ‘system’ implies interaction among a number of
entities. The term is nevertheless helpful in distinguishing between political systems
in which a single party enjoys the monopoly of power through the exclusion of all
other parties (by political or constitutional means) and those that are characterized
by a competitive struggle between a number of parties. Because monopolistic parties
effectively function as permanent governments, with no mechanism (short of a coup
or revolution) through which they can be removed from power, they invariably
develop an entrenched relationship with the state machine. This allows such states to
be classified as ‘one-party states’, their machinery being seen as a fused ‘party–state’
apparatus.
Two types of single-party systems had developed in Africa. Some countries became
de jure single-party states, 2 that is, they changed their constitutions so that only
one political party was allowed in the country. Using Heywood’s classification,
these ‘were found in state socialist regimes where “ruling” communist parties have
directed and controlled virtually all the institutions and aspects of society. Such
parties are subject to strict ideological discipline, in accordance with the tenets of
Marxism-Leninism, and they have highly structured internal organizations in line
See Nordlund 1996 for a detailed discussion of de jure and de facto party systems, with specific
reference to Zambia and Zimbabwe.