Political Parties in Africa: Challenges for Sustained Multiparty

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5 5.1.1 Party structure 0 Political Parties in Africa: Challenges for Sustained Multiparty Democracy Because of the voluntary nature of political parties, their supporters or members are bound by a set of values or ideologies, and a leadership with political skills and public appeal, which together generate collective discipline and loyalty. However, political parties differ from other social institutions in that, ideally, they are open to influences by other social structures and institutions. In Africa, as elsewhere, ethnicity, religion, kinship ties and economic conditions play an important role in the formation of political parties as social institutions, with far-reaching direct or indirect social and economic benefits and implications for their supporters. While party leaders may use them as institutions for leadership recruitment, upward political mobility or instruments to uplift their social status, likewise, in most African countries, political parties are treated as institutions for securing their share of power and by extension of the national cake. Between these two interests, which converge and diverge, depending on the extent to which party leaders are predators, patrons or charismatic leaders, political parties provide possibilities for horizontal and vertical mobility. In random interviews that Mohamed Salih (2005) conducted with party leaders in several African countries (Ghana, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi and Zambia), they all mentioned that their party leadership positions had improved their social standing both at the constituency level and nationally. Some (85 per cent) mentioned that party leadership had helped them to acquire wealth, prestige and a measure of power that enabled them to influence government decisions vital for their political survival (to lobby ministers to build health-care, water and education facilities or to interfere early enough to prevent local competition over resources developing into major conflicts). Research on African political party structures and on why people join party organizations, considering the structural limitations of political parties—particularly opposition political parties—is scarce, although new knowledge is emerging. 5 However, what can be documented with confidence is what is known in political science as electoral party structure. In common with all modern party structures, African party structures consist of a membership organization parallel to the electoral structure. In other words, the political party structure consists, from the lowest to the highest organs, of the following multiple layers: (a) the polling place (ward, settlement, and neighbourhood) organization at the lowest level; (b) the electoral district or constituency level in the national or local elections; (c) the district or provincial coordinating office; and (d) the central or national office, also called the See in particular International IDEA’s sub-regional reports on Southern, West and East Africa, forthcoming in 2007.
International Idea party headquarters. This implies some parallels between the party structure and the electoral organization. Political party structures are important elements informing the relationship between party leaders and party members or supporters at all levels, and as such they are pivotal players in (a) the electoral process and (b) how these relations are managed and whether the structure is centralized or decentralized. In investigating the political structures of 200 African political parties in 15 African countries we unfortunately found that the political parties have all adopted centralized party structures, whereby the central or national office takes all major and minor decisions affecting the functioning of the political parties. Mohamed Salih (2005) also found that 75 per cent of the political parties investigated had no offices at the polling station level and 62 per cent had no district or provincial coordinating offices. However, in most cases political party structures emerge only a few weeks and even days, in some circumstances, in time to oversee the national or presidential elections. The absence of party offices at the local and district levels of party structure speaks strongly for the fragmented nature of party politics, the spatial as well as real political distance between party leaders and their supporters, and the elite-dominated nature of African democracy. Another implication of this anomaly is that central party organs predominate over the lower levels of party structure either by holding the strings of party finance or by controlling the choice of party candidates for the national elections. It is the central party organs that decide whether to reward skilled politicians with the opportunity to serve at national level, although local politicians play a crucial role in galvanizing support at the ward, neighbourhood or settlement levels. 5.1.2 Party and government structure African political party structures are parallel to parliamentary structures and by extension to government structures in the case of the parties or coalitions in power. The question whether the parliamentary system is unicameral or bicameral affects the majority party standing in the case of cohabitation (i.e. in presidential systems where the president’s party does not command a parliamentary majority) or when one political party commands the majority in the upper house and the other in the lower house. Figure 1 shows the intimate relationship between party structure and government structure, with parliament as the mediating institution straddling the space between citizens (as voters represented by political parties) and government. Certain characteristics are pivotal for the good functioning of parliamentary democracy, in Party Structures and Internal Organization
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Political Parties in Africa: Challe
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Besides this report on political pa
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5. Party Structures and Internal Or
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0 Chapter 1 Methodology
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Mauritius Labour Party Mauritian Mi
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Chapter 2 Introduction
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Chapter 3 Context
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3.1 The internal context 3.1.1 Soci
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Acronyms and Abbreviations ACE Admi
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References and Select Bibliography
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Kadima, Denis, (ed.), The Politics
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—‘Building Political Parties: R
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About the Authors Per Nordlund is a
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Political Parties in Africa: Challenges for Sustained Multiparty

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