Political Parties in Africa: Challenges for Sustained Multiparty

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Political Parties in Africa: Challenges for Sustained Multiparty Democracy
5.2.2 Internal party finance: Transparency and accountability 6
The old contention that money must be raised in order for political parties to
perform their functions as organizations still holds true for political parties both in
mature and new democracies, and in countries in transition to democracy. African
political parties are not different, and like other political parties worldwide they need
money in order to perform their functions. African political parties raise money
in order to maintain themselves as organizations, recruit personnel, win support,
hold conventions, manage election campaigns, handle the media, establish political
offices to canvass support and get their message through to the electorates. The main
sources of political party funding in Africa are:
• donations;
• public funding;
• minimal membership fees;
• public funding/subsidies;
• trust funds; and
• corrupt kickbacks from businessmen and women.
Financial resources are an essential factor in sustaining a competitive democratic
system: a party’s functioning depends not only on goodwill, but also on the financial
and human resources it is able to muster. It also depends on the political party’s ability
to deploy these resources successfully in order to achieve its goals. While public,
private and citizens’ funding and contributions to political party finance provide a
linkage and an opportunity for citizen participation in the political process, funding
should not be deliberately designed for misconstruing the public interests parties
must serve for private gain.
In Africa, most political parties lack membership lists, let alone the expectation
that membership fees are regularly paid. Incumbent political parties depend on the
national coffers, the media, logistics and above all the advantage of incumbency to
access resources in order to attain their political ambitions. In such circumstances,
opposition political parties suffer three major disadvantages: (a) scarcity of resources,
The existing International IDEA database on the funding of political parties and election campaigns
can be found at the International IDEA website, http://www.idea.int. The database is to be developed
further through a partnership with the Institute of Social Studies (ISS), University of Leiden, the
Netherlands.