Can party democracy deliver Africa?

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has announced that the next General Election in Kenya will be conducted on August 8, 2017, as per the Constitution. This electoral cycle development has revitalised political activity and party re-alignment in readiness for the elections.

The variegated nature of our political parties may give birth to new ‘election vehicles’ full of vigour and promises to deliver the country out of its current socio-economic and political (development) challenges. We ponder whether we really have ‘political parties’ or they are just borne out of convenience without any grounding philosophy.

To begin with, ‘electoral democracy’ is often exercised through political party contexts and election contests. There are three fundamental premises upon which African political parties have negated democracy. It ought to be said that the original omission was committed at independence.

African political parties originated in the setting of colonial rule, which was neither democratic nor legitimate. In the urge to leave behind political institutions similar to their own, the departing colonial governments decided ‘to export to Africa their peculiar version of government, with several parties and a recognised opposition'.

The second omission is owed to the speed of political development. At this stage, numerous ethnically-based parties emerged in opposition to other ethnic parties. After the attainment of independence and the waning of the ‘decolonisation nationalism’, the political elite abandoned the goal of national unity, the very goal that gave birth to their political ambitions, and fell back on regional, sub-nationalist and tribal parties. This was the third and final blow to political parties to date.

According to a renowned scholar, Pachodo 2011, a political party is an organized group of people with similar political aims and opinions that seek to influence public policy by getting its candidates elected to public office. If we just have political parties to win seats and get into office, we lose Pachodo’s subsequent argument. For he reckons that political parties must be involved in making laws, rules and regulations, and ensuring that ultimately, the people’s social-cultural and economic well being is realized.

Indigenous African leadership held basic tenets of democratic governance and has been adapted to contemporary political realities, at-least according to the Ethiopia African Development Forum 2004.

These tenets delivered; a clear understanding and agreements regarding the ideas and principles that underlie their political systems and on the basis of which power and authority were exercised by the various elements of government.

Political parties are thus recognised as essential components of representative democracy. Since the start of the third wave of democratisation in 1974, various forms of multiparty political systems have been introduced in Africa. This has been done with the rational view to: empower vulnerable groups, increase transparency, mediate conflict and achieve redistribution of income to the poor, but it may also give more influence to already powerful elites, marginalise the poor and minorities, and be used to mobilise ethnic and religious groups against each other.

Hence, the good functioning of mature political parties is central for democratization and development. A crucial look at the current political party system reflects the opposite. In real democratic societies, political parties are therefore indispensable voluntary and informal associations of society, where people share commonly understood values, customs and attitudes to their role in politics.

They are products of and operate within economic structures, and in a context of interests that are affected by and respond to the accumulation and distribution of goodwill and resources. When we draw parallels in our Kenyan context and elsewhere in Africa; mushrooming of political parties is based on none of these ideals.

The normative scheme ought to consist of political institutions (parties) of well- established rules of conduct, usually enforced spontaneous community action. As instruments of collective action, political parties ought to be formed in a bid to effectively implement a people oriented political ideology.

Ideally, they represent political constituencies and interests, recruit and socialize new candidates for office, set policy-making agendas, integrate disparate groups and individuals into the democratic process, and form the basis of stable political coalitions and hence governments.

Beyond these functional activities, political parties should also provide a number of deeper, systemic supports that help make democracy work effectively. According to the US National Democratic Institute, for instance, ‘political parties’ form the cornerstone of a democratic society and serve a function unlike any other institution in a democracy.

Parties aggregate and represent social interests and provide a structure for political participation. Here is why I maintain that our political parties have failed the litmus test. In Africa, four democracy challenges are a recipe in our current political party systems.

First is that political parties by themselves impede competitive politics, which contributes to political apathy and low voter turnout, as has been demonstrated in the last elections in South Africa, Mozambique, Mali and Senegal. Secondly, dominant parties dominate the legislature and could monopolize the law making process to promote the predominant party’s economic and social interests as the Jubilee Alliance Party does in Kenya.

Third; Governments formed under the system are less accountable to the legislature, which they dominate, and the opposition, which is too small to be effective. Fourthly they encourage government to develop the arrogance of power and become irresponsive to citizen demands.

In conclusion, there ought to be deliberate and immediate efforts to mediate between the demands of the citizenry on the one hand and the actions of the political parties on the other. These must be geared towards, aggregating the diverse demands of the electorate into coherent and sustainable public policy or party manifestos.