Political Parties in Africa: Challenges for Sustained Multiparty

Political Parties in Africa: Challenges for Sustained Multiparty Democracy
commonly held or known interests of the political forces of a given country. This
is important because the legislature—the end result of the electoral process and the
electoral system a country adopts—is the only credible national institution that
is capable of offering an inclusive platform for legislation, legitimacy and conflict
management through peaceful means. Electoral reforms are therefore important
instruments for conflict management in severely divided societies where conflicts
are preferably resolved through parliamentary debate and compromise rather than
by the use of the machete and the gun. It is through electoral systems in conjunction
with political party systems that the whole political system could be sufficiently
prepared to ensure inclusiveness and representation.
4.4 Political competition
While democracy is an ideal, political democracy or polyarchy is a practice. Its
full range of possibilities is only seen in democratic countries with competitive
political systems. Political competition is one of three dimensions without which it
is impossible to describe a political system as democratic. Sorensen (1993: 12–13)
summarizes Dahl’s eight characteristics or conditions encompassing inclusiveness as
an essential part of democracy both as idea and as practice, under three headings:
(a) a highly inclusive level of political participation in the election of leaders and
policies, at least through regular and fair elections, such that no major social
group is excluded;
(b) meaningful and extensive competition among individuals and organized groups
(especially political parties) for all effective positions of government power, at
regular intervals and strictly excluding the use of force or coercion; and
(c) an assured level of civil and political liberties—freedom of expression, freedom
of the press, freedom to form and join organizations—sufficient to ensure the
integrity of political competition and participation.
Beyond these normative aspects of political parties as vehicles for participation in
democratic politics, they ‘are permanent organizations which contest elections,
usually because they seek to occupy the decisive positions of authority within the
state’ (Weiner 1967: 7). In this sense, political parties’ struggle for power is based on
competition, even though, paradoxically, they maintain an internal sense of interest
aggregation of politically and ideologically like-minded individuals and groups.
Political party competition is part of a healthy democratic system whereby
competition, according to political theorists, encourages the diffusion of innovations